Guns and Money Play Key Roles in Governors Races
October 20, 2002

by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor

Gun-related issues keep creeping into gubernatorial races in several states this year, even as some observers suggest that the gun issue is not that vital.

For example, consider the campaign in New York state where Republican Gov. George Pataki was expected to win easy reelection just a few weeks ago. The media isn’t mentioning guns, but Pataki’s push for a multi-pronged gun bill early in this term is causing him some grief. Before he withdrew from the Sept. 10 primary, former Clinton cabinet member Andrew Cuomo was trying to play the anti-gun card, but the issue is now more veiled. Many gunowners, including many died-in-the-wool Republican voters, are still smarting from what they believe is a double-cross by Pataki.

Compounding the problem is the fact that third parties play an important role in New York state politics, and billionaire Tom Golisano, who has run against Pataki in the past, was able to strip Pataki of the endorsement of one of the two minor lines he contested. Golisano founded the Independence Party along the lines of Ross Perot’s Reform Party, in an earlier contest with Pataki.

The New York state-based Shooters Committee on Political Education (SCOPE Inc.) gives Golisano an “A” rating based on his questionnaire and his previous campaign statements related to guns. Pataki is rated an “F,” while Democratic candidate Carl McCall is unrated.

In most states the race would be between Pataki and McCall, but not in New York. Third parties can be almost mainstream, and people have won statewide races there in recent years on minor party lines alone.

Given that Golisano has more of his own personal fortune to put into the race, it becomes a serious three-way race. The Buffalo News reported on Oct. 5—exactly one month before the election—that Pataki reported having $12.1 million on hand, compared to $1.1 million for McCall. Golisano, the dark horse, has a personal net worth of close to $2 billion, and is spending big on his campaign. He spent $9 million in the two weeks prior to the report, and $39.7 million to his last report. But at the same time, it was announced that he was launching massive new television and newspaper ad campaigns that would run until election day.

The previous all-time statewide campaign record was a combined $88 million in the 2000 US Senate race between then-Rep. Rick Lazio and now Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. This year’s gubernatorial race will set a record for spending, and in the background, Pataki’s gun control agenda may come back to haunt him.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the “Million” Mom March have been playing a key role in the Maryland gubernatorial race since early this summer but now they have begun airing a television advertisement that attacks Republican Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. on the issue of gun control. The ad is being shown on Montgomery County, MD, cable channels, according to The Baltimore Sun and probably has gained added resonance because of the recent random shootings in that area.

What the ad says: The 30-second spot begins with the sound of two gunshots and a picture of an ambulance. “Bob Ehrlich is dead wrong,” an announcer says.

“Uzis and AK-47s don’t belong in our neighborhoods,” the announcer says, as the video shows men shooting automatic weapons. An image briefly flashes on the screen of students and teachers fleeing Columbine High School in Littleton, CO.

“In Congress, Bob Ehrlich voted to put dangerous assault weapons back on our streets,” the announcer says, flashing pictures of the US Capitol and the Baltimore County congressman.

“Now he’s criticizing a Maryland law that helps police catch violent gun criminals, and even wants to allow cheap Saturday Night Specials to be sold,” the announcer says. The screen shows recent newspaper articles chronicling Ehrlich’s statements on guns, then flashes images of a handgun and a crime scene with the chalk outline of a body.

“Tell Bob Ehrlich to stop siding with gun lobby extremists who threaten our neighborhoods,” the announcer concludes, giving viewers the phone number of Ehrlich’s Washington congressional office.

The facts: The ad follows up on comments Ehrlich made to reporters in August, saying he would seek to review two of Maryland’s gun control laws “to see what’s working”—the ballistic fingerprint program, in which state police keep track of shell casing data, and the Handgun Roster Board, which approves all handguns before they can be sold in the state.

According to The Sun, the ad accurately portrays Ehrlich’s congressional vote on “assault weapons;” he voted in Congress in 1996 to repeal the federal ban on such guns, although that bill failed to win a majority. Ehrlich also voted in 1988, as a member of the Maryland General Assembly, to oppose the state ban on cheaply made handguns frequently called Saturday Night Specials. Though he said recently that he wants to review the effectiveness of the board created by that law, he says he opposes legalizing such weapons. Meanwhile, the Roster Board has approved some 1,500 models for sale.

The ad continues the effort of handgun control advocates—as well as supporters of Democrat Kathleen Kennedy Townsend—to focus attention on Ehrlich’s congressional record. Advocates believe that voters in the populous Washington suburbs are particularly supportive of handgun control and already have run radio ads in the market criticizing Ehrlich on guns.

In Colorado, where the shots fired at Columbine still echo, The Rocky Mountain News reported that the National Rifle Association (NRA) had thrown its support behind US Sen. Wayne Allard, even though he and opponent Tom Strickland have voiced little difference on gun-ownership issues in this campaign.

The NRA also backed Allard, a Republican, in his successful initial run for the Senate in 1996, when he ran against Strickland, a Democrat. Not surprisingly, the NRA tends to support incumbents when there is little difference between candidates’ positions.

“Wayne Allard has been a strong supporter of Second Amendment issues. He has been good on this issue in both word and deed,” said Chris Cox, executive director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action.

“His opponent, Tom Strickland, has refused to even answer the NRA federal candidates’ questionnaire, which is clear indication of indifference—if not outright hostility—to our gun-rights and uniting traditions,” Cox said.

The NRA endorsement of Allard came four days after Strickland—US attorney for Colorado from 1999 to 2001—gained the backing of the Fraternal Order of Police, the Colorado Police Protective Association and the Colorado Professional Firefighters Association.

Allard and Strickland, who both own shotguns, seem to be reading from the same script when talking about gun control during this campaign, said The News. Both say tougher enforcement of existing laws is what’s needed, rather than new laws, but their stances were different in 1996.

Strickland spoke out then in support of adding those convicted of misdemeanor domestic abuse to the list of people prohibited from buying handguns under the Brady Bill. The same year, Congress passed an amendment doing just that.

Not surprisingly, it also has been reported that the NRA is backing GOP challenger William Simon against Democratic Gov. Gray Davis in California.

Davis has had a consistently anti-gun record in the state house. While he has occasionally slowed the runaway hoplophobia of the state legislature, he has signed enough new gun measures to be a star of the Brady Bunch.

His latest—which was hailed as a national landmark by gun control forces—was signing a bill that would open the floodgates of frivolous, politically-motivated litigation against the firearms industry.