It’s been a week since the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., that left 17 people dead. And in that short amount of time, the teenage survivors have started a movement to turn up the pressure on lawmakers for gun control reforms.
Florida State Representative Jared Moskowitz says we shouldn’t be surprised by how quickly they mobilized.
“This is what America looks like,” he said. “This is how we’ve brought major change in this country before. Groups have risen up and demanded the system change. It just so happens that it’s kids. Maybe we’re not used to that...but if the adults in the room are failing, then let’s listen to our children.”
On Tuesday, just days after the shooting, Florida lawmakers voted down a motion to take up a bill that would ban assault rifles, reflecting the state’s historical reluctance to enact gun control reforms.
“Florida is, unfortunately, the Petri dish for the NRA,” says Moskowitz.
The legislator urged President Trump to live up to his campaign promise and make America great again. He said the commander-in-chief can’t use pushback from Congress as an excuse for not getting things done.
“Just sign an executive order and ban bump stocks,” he said. “Just sign an executive order and deal with background checks.”
The tech-savvy teenagers of Parkland have leveraged social and traditional media to mobilize people across the country. They’ve organized a national “March for our Lives” protest for March 24.
For full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/florida-state-legislator-partisanship-on-gun-control-wont-cut-it).
The U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs introduced legislation Tuesday requiring banks to maintain “digital dollar wallets” for coronavirus stimulus payments to consumers.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo Wednesday afternoon said the greatest strain on the state’s health care system from the coronavirus could come in approximately 21 days, while also providing early indications about steps the state might eventually take to restart the economy.
One of the most influential industries on Capitol Hill was left out of the package that advanced early Wednesday, an apparent setback for a sector that had expected to easily secure $3 billion to fund the purchase of oil to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).
There's no 12th Democratic presidential debate on the horizon now that the nominating process is in a holding pattern due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Senate will reconvene later Wednesday to vote on the package. But that does not mean the bill is guaranteed to land on President Donald Trump’s desk. The House of Representatives has to pass it, and that may not be an easy feat.
The White House and Senate leaders of both major political parties announced agreement early Wednesday on an unprecedented $2 trillion emergency bill to rush sweeping aid to businesses, workers and a health care system slammed by the coronavirus pandemic.
Stocks are moving tentatively higher in early trading on Wall Street Wednesday after Congress and the White House reached a deal to inject nearly $2 trillion of aid into an economy ravaged by the coronavirus.
The death toll in Spain from the coronavirus shot up by more than 700 on Wednesday, surpassing China and is now second only to Italy as the pandemic spread rapidly in Europe, with even Britain’s Prince Charles testing positive for the virus.
Each piece of legislation is long: 247 pages for the Senate bill and a whopping 1,404 pages for the House bill. While we cannot distill every provision, here’s a look at some of the major differences between the two pieces of legislation.
Stocks are jumping in midday trading on Wall Street Tuesday amid expectations that Congress is nearing a deal on a big coronavirus relief bill. That would follow more aggressive steps from the Federal Reserve announced a day earlier to support lending and bond markets.
