Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, the top Democrat negotiator on a pending package to address armed violence, told reporters Tuesday afternoon that an agreement had been reached on the legislative text and that the bill would come out soon.
“We have an agreement and the text will come out very soon,” Murphy said before going to the Senate to preside.
Murphy declined to give a more specific timeline on when the bill would be introduced before leaders have indicated it would be a quick vote.
A bipartisan group of senators has been working behind the scenes for days to turn a previously announced legislative framework into a specific bill that retains enough Republican support to prevent a blockage.
Democratic leaders, including Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, have made it clear that they need the text of the bill by Tuesday to reach a vote before the July 4 recess.
The disagreements the negotiators faced
Sources told ABC News earlier that abortion funding had emerged as the latest drawback in Senate talks to finalize the legislative deal, with the informal deadline approaching the end of Tuesday in order to maintain a potential bill for a vote before two … weekly vacation.
Negotiators had recently focused on the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding from being used to pay for abortions. This provision was caught in the part of the possible gun law that deals with the financing of mental health, with Republicans pushing for the language to ban any money in a final deal from being used to pay for abortions, according to a knowledgeable source of the matter.
This inconvenience marked the last curved ball of the discussions.
Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the main Republican working on the deal, told ABC News on Tuesday he was optimistic that a deal could be reached later that day, saying the draft text will come up. brief “.
However, Cornyn said – without giving further details – that certain “details” needed to be resolved.
“It’s a complicated bill and it’s been a tough negotiation,” he said.
Senator John Cornyn speaks at a hearing on “Protecting U.S. Children from Armed Violence” with the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington on June 15, 2022.
Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images
The other main negotiators were Senators Murphy, Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) And Thom Tillis (RNC).
Talks on weapons have recently been limited to two other disagreements: the funding of “red flag” laws, which would allow law enforcement to remove firearms from those they consider dangerous to themselves or to to the others, and the extent to which the “groom’s slit” should be addressed by expanding the type of domestic aggressors prohibited from having firearms.
Senator Durbin, the majority whip, suggested to ABC News on Tuesday that talks on the Hyde Amendment could be resolved quickly and aides were still optimistic that a global deal would not derail.
Negotiators have been pushing for a bill that could get obstruction-proof support from 10 Republican senators, the same number who previously supported the June 12-announced framework.
Senator Chris Murphy speaks during a rally near Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on June 10, 2022, and calls on Congress to pass gun legislation.
Susan Walsh / AP
Democrats want an agreement to be reached soon to keep up the momentum in the midst of public protest following the high-profile mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas. Meanwhile, Republicans are facing calls from their grassroots to reduce access to firearms in any piece of legislation, with that pressure showing up over the weekend when Cornyn was booed at a convention. state party in Texas.
When ABC News asked him on Tuesday if that made negotiations more difficult, Cornyn replied, “Oh, no. No, no.”