Boehner, Cantor to meet with Newtown families
Updated 1:56 p.m. ET, Tuesday, 6/11, to reflect a schedule change for the meeting.
Washington (CNN) - The two top Republicans in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives will meet Wednesday with families who lost loved ones in the Newtown, Connecticut, elementary school shooting.
According to an aide to John Boehner, the House speaker and Majority Leader Eric Cantor will sit down with the families, who will be in Washington to mark six months since the massacre that left 26 dead.
[twitter-follow screen_name='politicalticker']
"Speaker Boehner's heart goes out to the victims of this senseless tragedy and their families. He wants to hear their stories and talk about ways to reduce the culture of violence in our country," Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said.
Some Newtown families have been actively lobbying members of Congress for tougher firearm laws during this year's gun control debate. When the Senate failed to advance a set of gun proposals in April, President Barack Obama - with Newtown families standing behind - vowed the fight was not over.
Parents of seven children killed in the shooting were set to begin meeting with members of Congress on Tuesday, according to a spokesman for Sandy Hook Promise, a nonprofit group formed to help spur legislation on the gun issue and is coordinating the trip.
A separate group of families, working with the Newtown Action Alliance, will come to Washington on Wednesday and meet with members of Congress for two days. A spokesman for the group said it will also coordinate Thursday on the steps of the U.S. Capitol what it calls a "Human Ribbon of Remembrance" in memory of the 26 children and adults killed.
Besides Boehner and Cantor, the groups are not revealing who else they will be meeting with.
House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer said the fact that Boehner is meeting with the families "shows respect for them” but added, “I dont know that they will move him to action.”
"I'm very doubtful that the House leadership has any intention of bringing a bill to the floor," he said.
Before the proposals failed in the Senate, Boehner had said repeatedly that the House would wait on the Senate to take action.
Since the Senate proposals’ failure, the House has not moved on the issue. Republican Rep. Peter King of New York and Democratic Rep. Mike Thompson of California had planned to propose a background check bill similar to the one considered by the Senate, but it has not gone anywhere since the Senate version was dropped two months ago.
- CNN Senior Producer Kevin Bohn contributed to this report.
From CNN Politics
- Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Texas and Minnesota elections
- Results are in: Best Balance Transfer card of 2022
- Federal budget deficit could shrink to $1 trillion this year, CBO says
- US envoy for Iran says prospects for a return to nuclear deal are 'tenuous at best'
- What to know about the NRA's annual meeting in Houston
- Why the President, Congress and the Supreme Court can't -- or won't -- stop mass shootings
The nerve these guys have. These two men, boehner and cantor are exactly what is wrong with the republican party. What happens now will be their legacy, and undoing. Their time and their party has seen its best days. These guys lack guts to stand up to tea party wack jobs. adios.......................
We need a blue congress in 2014.
"Speaker Boehner's heart goes out to the victims of this senseless tragedy and their families. He wants to hear their stories and talk about ways to reduce the culture of violence in our country," This sounds great as long as it does not include infringements on the 2A. We need more comprehensive plans to reduce our culture of violence. Gun control is simply a lazy and ineffective approach.
At last they are going to listen to real people and not just their own voices or ideology.
Mass killings are getting worse and gun control law weak states not doing their job properly resulting in failure to find loonies getting guns and ammo Santa Monica??
Regards,
Hodgson.
Cant imagine what these two would have to say to these families. Just like Paul speaking at black colleges its hard to hear from someone who doesnt have your best interest at heart. I wish all our senators would do their job and stop running for 2016. Doing their job would guarantee victory not these strategic plots.
Don't punish law abiding people for the acts of some criminals. Leave our gun's alone.
The Guns Over People tea potty only care about protecting NRA money,not Americans.
That picture this early in the morning almost made me throw up,. The "I want what I want when I wanted" tea troll and the weeper of the house who has lost control but he still wants to be the boss.,
Disgusting!
What will they talk to the families about? About the division with partisan politics that ended in not a thing being done. Talk about wasting taxpayer dollars! I'm sure the people that suffered from the tragedy can hardly wait for the do-nothings to arrive.
A quest for more votes – What an insult to add to this human tragedy.
So, since the Senate didn't do anything, I'm not going to do anything either. If the Senate had done something, I would have had the House vote it down anyway. Either way I would have gotten what I wanted, no victory for Obama.
– John Boehner.
The families ought to spit in both of their faces. Two of the worst Congressmen EVER.
If this isn't the height of hypocrisy, I don't know what is. They couldn't come forward back in December, they allowed even background checks to fail and now they want to meet with the families!! I pray for a Democratic Congress in 2014 – perhaps they will not live up to our expectations but anything is better than this!
I saw the families exit Air Force One. Who paid for this? This is an Obama political agenda and I for one hope the US tax payers are not on the hook fo rthis.
"TJ
We need a blue congress in 2014."
We already had and nothing good happened. We need red senate and red congress in 2014
this callous act is a slap in the face of the parents who lost their children. And if they think no background checks and unlimited magazines will help, I'd love to see the parents faces. BTW, are there gonna be cameras there to document the "sympathetic (what a laugh) congressman" as the face these people? Way to exploit a tragedy you two. GUNS FOR EVERYONE. NO LIMITS. And the tightie righties slam Obama for meeting with victims?? What are these two doing???
Mistake. What fools. They play right into the hands of the liberal press and looney democrats. STOP already. Gun rights are not up for discussion. The laws on the books are already good enough. We need new leaders in our party. Focus on taxes and business. Stop debating everything.....there is no debate. And let the left kill their babies.....who cares....we are pro abortion.
Yes,,, his heart goes out to them,... thats all that will be going out to them, love is free... help actually costs money, and we know that the GOP brand of freedom means one thing.
You are free to die under a bridge alone, its the GOP american way.
HAH. What a joke. I wonder if they will have metal detectors at the door. I wonder if they will let the press in. Probably no press. Cantor cant handle it without a script.
Reading these comments disturbs me. I think the whole worlds hearts go out to these families that have lost loved ones. I hear everyone talk about "common sense" approaches to curb gun violence, but there is no common sense and any of these conversations. First off, no law can go against the 2nd amendment, or any part of the constitution for that matter. That is why the constitution itself was put in place. Second, banning certain style weapons will not curb violence because a criminal will always find a way to get their hands on one. Criminals do not obey laws, only law-abiding citizens do. Existing laws need to be enforced before new ones are put in place, and penalties for gun related crime need to be tough and enforced. I already have to go through a background check when purchasing a gun, the only reason to expand them would be fore the government to keep a registry and to spy on us. This administration has already proven that they can't be trusted. They are not only attacking our 2nd amendment rights, they are attacking our privacy also.
How utterly disgusting of them.
I hope the families brought pictures of their dead kids to show to these two worthless right wing cowards!
Putting a human face on things that Guvment should butt out of can change one's political ideology/theology.
If I were one of the parents of those lovely children killed for no reason, I could not bring myself to even look at Cantor or Boehner, much less talk to them. There are limits to how much a grieving parent can take. Why do we keep those Republicans, and I mean just about all of them, in Congress, when they have put up their hands to every helpful thing the Democrats have been trying to do. Why?
They're probably doing this for a photo op!! If these bozos were so concerned, 1. Why didn't they do smoething about it when they had the chance to fix the gun issue, and 2. Why didn't they meet with the families sooner!! The only thing the repube party is good at is talking. They really haven't done anything in the 2 years they have held congress besides illegalizing abortion and appealing Obamacare. What ever happened to all those jobs bills they were talking about!!