The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee voted 11-11, along party lines, to advance the nomination of David Chipman to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
With the tie vote, Chipman’s nomination will now move before the entire U.S. Senate, where a majority vote will be required to confirm him as director of the ATF.
In the event of a tie, Vice President Kamala Harris (D) would vote to break the tie. She would presumably vote in favor of Chipman.
“David Chipman spent the last 10 years unapologetically lobbying for gun control on Capitol Hill and getting paid to do Michael Bloomberg’s bidding. He supports extreme, unconstitutional restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms, and today’s party-line vote in the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee affirms the reality that he is unfit to lead ATF. While Chipman awaits consideration before the full U.S. Senate, NRA will continue to activate our members and the millions of law-abiding American gun owners across the country to contact their U.S. senators and urge them to vote against his confirmation,” said Jason Ouimet, executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action.
Before the vote, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said, “We got a nominee who supports [gun] confiscation, who wants to ban guns who wants a registry and who was appointed to carry out Joe Biden’s promise, ‘Bingo!’ We’re coming after your guns.”
“Based on Mr. Chipman’s bombastic and often inaccurate statements made while working as a lobbyist for two major anti-gun groups, Giffords and Everytown, I have strong concerns about his ability to set aside his personal views to work with the firearms industry and with law-abiding gun owners to effectively run ATF, ” said Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah).
We’ve covered Chipman extensively here at A1F.com, including his many troubling statements and attempted backtracking, how a former ATF director said he would compromise the organization’s mission, and much more.
Dozens of House Republicans have already sent a letter to their U.S. Senate colleagues in which they called Chipman an “enemy of the Second Amendment.”
We will continue to keep you informed on the progress of this troubling nominee moving forward and call upon NRA members to reach out to their respective senators and urge them to vote ‘NO’ on Chipman.
