[Al Norris]

From The Washington Post, there is this:

One of President Obama's top legislative priorities is in serious doubt after top House Democrats' attempt to satisfy the National Rifle Association backfired badly.

Top Democrats abandoned plans for a Friday vote in the House on the legislation, known as the Disclose Act, after liberal groups and members of the Congressional Black Caucus rose up against the deal with the NRA. A lobbying blitz by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups also undermined support for the legislation, aides said.

There is much more about this from Politico.com this morning:

Hatched over the last few weeks by Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) with backing from House Democratic leaders and the White House, it was a legislative maneuver rich with the kind of irony that often goes unremarked in Washington - a classic back-room special interest deal to help pass a bill that would require heightened disclosure of special interest spending on campaign ads.

The idea was to neutralize opposition to tough new campaign spending rules from one particularly powerful special interest group, the National Rifle Association, by exempting it as well as the left-leaning Sierra Club and the ecumenical Humane Society and AARP from certain disclosure requirements in the bill. But while the maneuver was effective in getting the NRA to back down, the deal sparked a backlash that pitted big-money special interest groups, including some traditional allies, against each other, and turned fence-sitters and even some supporters of the bill into opponents.

Short of the votes needed for passage in the House, the bill was pulled Thursday night by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

....

Still, he said his team “tried to talk to them (the NRA) at some length about this,” but was told the group had determined its position based on an assessment of its members’ interest and wasn’t open to changing it.

“I would suggest to you that they have decided that protecting the Second Amendment right is their mission and cutting a deal on the First Amendment to ensure their capacity to protect the Second Amendment was more important to them, the result of which was to toss overboard roughly 100,000 other associations,” asserted Josten.

NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said the criticism his group has received from the right – including being blasted as hypocritical, “arrogant and elitist” by the Wall Street Journal editorial board – hasn’t changed the group’s commitment to its neutrality to the bill – provided the carve out remains intact.

“We did what was in the best interests for the NRA and the Second Amendment and we would do it again,” he said. “We do not take positions on bills that do not affect us.”

Josten asserted the NRA’s neutrality “strengthened the unions” and “undercut” the business community headed into the 2010 midterm elections.

Politics is a very dirty game. A game the NRA-ILA is good at. We may never know if this was the exact outcome that the NRA wanted. Regardless, the bill now appears to be dead.