Gun Control, Gay Marriage, Global Warming and Other Issues Obama Has Pushed In His Second Term

Shortly after Obama got reelected, Adam Lanza shot 27 people to death, including 20 children, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. Obama responded quickly, signing 23 executive orders aimed at curbing gun violence and demanding that congress bolster the regulation of firearms.

While the gun control push was greeted with much fanfare, it ultimately fizzled out. A bill was written, but its flagship component, a requirement that purchasers of guns undergo background checks, failed when put to a vote (it had a majority of votes but, you know, the filibuster). A ban on assault weapons, pushed heavily by Sen. Diane Feinstein, was also voted down.

After reports began surfacing that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had deployed chemical weapons in his country, Obama announced that the administration would arm members of the resistance. That was in June; the plan quickly stalled when leading members of the Senate and House’s intelligence committees raised concerns that the weapons could end up in the hands of militant Islamic groups, which comprise at least part of the rebel movement.

Those concerns were apparently resolved a month ago, yet two months after the announcement was made, U.S. weapons still haven’t reached the rebels. (It’s worth noting, however, that Obama wavered on arming the rebels for nearly two years, and didn’t exactly make it a centerpiece of his foreign policy agenda.) Whether the recent and horrific alleged chemical attack will rush further action remains to be seen.

Though Obama claimed to oppose marriage equality during his 2008 campaign, he revealed two years later that his views were “evolving” on the issue, which everyone basically took to mean that he secretly supported gay marriage — but didn’t want to announce it just yet because the political climate wasn’t right. He ultimately did come out for gay marriage in May of last year, and called for marriage equality.

After his reelection, the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act and threw away a case to reinstate Proposition 8 in California. The rulings were a big win for the marriage equality movement, but polls began showing majority support for gay marriage back in 2011, and SCOTUS heard the cases before Obama announced his support.

Climate change legislation narrowly passed the House early in Obama’s first term, only to die a cruel death in the senate soon thereafter. This isn’t stopping president from giving the issue another go. In June, Obama announced a “new national climate action plan” and gave several directives to agency heads that don’t require congressional approval.

If all of Obama’s directives proceed as issued, the EPA will impose limits on its dumping of carbon pollutions, the Defense Department will install 3 gigawatts of renewable power sources on its bases, and the Interior Department will have six million homes running on green energy within seven years. Also by 2020, the federal government will aim to derive 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources.

But Obama also plans to impose limits on carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants, which will require states to develop their own compliance plans. This essentially amounts to Obama announcing unilaterally to state legislators and governors across the country that he’d like it if they passed climate change legislation, please, and thank you very much. He has no way to get them to comply, though, so it’s sort of the opposite of speaking softly and carrying a big stick.

Unlike most policy Obama supports, Republicans actually see an incentive — albeit a crass, political one — to working with the president on immigration reform. A bipartisan group of senators huddled together in the spring to cobble together some legislation; in April, they introduced the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013 on the Senate floor, and the bill passed the Senate (!) 68-32 in June.

But the bill, which would both provide a path to citizenship for many undocumented immigrants and beef up border security between the U.S. and Mexico, is now languishing in the House of Representatives, where Speaker John Boehner refuses to put it up for a vote. This initiative also has to be ranked as incomplete; some reports suggest that Boehner ultimately does intend to pass the legislation, but he’s stated explicitly that he won’t put it up for a vote until it has majority support within the Republican caucus, which it currently doesn’t.