GOP senator: Compromise gun bill to get test vote

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said her bipartisan bill to block those on terrorist watchlists from buying a gun will be getting a test vote as soon as Thursday afternoon.

{mosads}”There’s an agreement to get votes and I’m very happy about that,” she told reporters. “That will allow me determine whether we have majority support, and I’m hopeful that we will.”

Her comments came as Republicans huddled to discuss the compromise gun legislation.

Collins said it was her “best bet” that a vote on a motion to table her proposal, which is being offered as an amendment to a broader spending bill, would take place Thursday afternoon.

Backers of Collins’s legislation will need to get a majority of the Senate to vote against tabling the proposal, a move that would pigeonhole the measure and undercut momentum.

Collins said she was “hopeful” she will get the majority needed to keep her proposal alive, but it’s uncertain if it will get the 60 votes needed to pass it through the Senate.

The legislation would allow the attorney general to block the sale of a gun if an individual is on the no-fly list or what’s called the “selectee list,” which requires additional screening at an airport.

It would also allow the decision to be appealed and would notify the FBI if someone who was the subject of a terror investigation within the past five years buys a gun.

Republicans said after the meeting they will also take a test vote on a dueling GOP proposal Thursday.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said a key difference between the counter proposal and the Collins’s amendment centered around due process.

GOP senators have largely remained on the fence about the Collins’s measure, citing questions about if it does enough to protect Americans not tied to terrorism from being blocked from buying a gun.

–This report was updated at 1:33 p.m.