United States

Gun violence was once again at the centre of the national dialogue after 20 children and 6 adults were killed in a mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut on December 14, 2012. (The shooter also killed himself and his mother that day.) Obama echoed the widespread public concern by asking Congress to enact new gun-control legislation that would mandate universal background checks for gun purchases, eliminate the sales of assault weapons and magazines containing more than 10 rounds of ammunition, provide for enhanced protection in schools, and put renewed focus on the treatment of mental illness. As Obama sought to marshal support for such legislation, the National Rifle Association and other gun-rights advocates actively campaigned against it. In April 2013 the Senate debated and then took preliminary votes on a gun-control bill and a series of amendments that by consent of both parties needed a filibuster-proof supermajority of 60 votes before the bill would be submitted for formal passage. Notwithstanding polls that indicated overwhelming public support for universal background checks, a measure that called for greatly expanded background checks failed to garner sufficient support (winning only a simple majority, 54–46). Although the vote generally followed party lines, a handful of Republicans supported the measure and a few Democrats opposed it. All the related amendments also failed, and the bill was withdrawn.

Sandy Hook Elementary School shootingA Connecticut State Police officer leading children out of the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, after a mass shooting at the school on December 14, 2012.Shannon Hicks—Newtown Bee/AP

“Sequester” cuts, the Benghazi furor, and Susan Rice on the hot seat

The budget compromise reached in January delayed for two months the automatic cuts on military and social spending that had been mandated by Congress in July 2012 if Democrats and Republicans failed to agree on an alternative approach to deficit reduction. When the new March 31, 2013, deadline passed without an agreement, the initial round of these so-called “sequester” cuts went into effect. The first high-profile consequence of the cuts, significant delays in air travel resulting from mandatory furloughs for air-traffic controllers, was quickly addressed by Congress authorizing the Federal Aviation Administration to shift funds from facility improvement to salaries. As the spring progressed, however, officials of more and more federally funded programs and agencies bemoaned the reductions to the services they provided that resulted from the sequester cuts.

Obama’s efforts to move forward with his second-term agenda were compromised by a number of controversies in which the administration was embroiled. Republican criticism of the government’s role in the Benghazi attacks had been ongoing, but it escalated in May, when assertions of mismanagement and unpreparedness were compounded by renewed accusations of a cover-up, which many Republicans saw reflected in a recently released e-mail exchange between officials of the State Department and the CIA that had preceded UN Ambassador Susan Rice’s appearance on television news programs a few days after the attacks. Characterizing the e-mail string as a dialogue grounded not in politics but in an effort to convey the changing understanding of events that had occurred just a few days previously, the administration dismissed the Republican allegations as politically motivated.

The IRS scandal, the Justice Department’s AP phone records seizure, and Edward Snowden’s leaks

Also in May 2013, Obama joined Republicans in roundly castigating the Internal Revenue Service after revelations that employees of the department had excessively scrutinized conservative groups’ applications for tax-exempt status. Obama asked for and accepted the resignation of the department’s acting commissioner and promised to reform the department, but, unsatisfied, Republicans led further investigations into the matter.

That month Republicans as well as many Democrats also were outraged over revelations that the Department of Justice, as part of an investigation into a news leak related to a foiled terrorist plot, had subpoenaed and seized two months’ worth of phone records of reporters and editors who worked in several Associated Press offices in May 2012 without notifying that organization. Despite Attorney General Eric Holder’s explanation that the news leak was serious, Republicans characterized the action as an egregious violation of the First Amendment and again pursued further congressional inquiries.