Pat Toomey

WASHINGTON - Facing stubborn resistance that threatens to sink his background-check bill, Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) pressed to win over wavering colleagues Tuesday while questions swirled around the vote of one of the Senate's most reliable advocates for tougher gun laws: New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg. With about 40 senators publicly opposed to the bipartisan plan to expand background checks on gun buyers, Toomey and his cosponsor, Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.), faced an increasingly narrow path to the 60 votes they needed to advance the bill.

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Senate on Wednesday rejected a bill sponsored by Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) and Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) that would have expanded background checks on gun buyers to include sales made at gun shows and online. Sixty votes were needed to advance the bipartisan measure. The plan received 54 votes. Forty-six senators voted "no. " President Obama, who had pushed an array of gun-control measures in the aftermath of the Newtown school shootings, called the vote a "shameful day for Washington.

WASHINGTON - A bipartisan proposal to expand background checks to more gun buyers is in jeopardy. The pool of potential Republican votes that Democrats will need to push the measure through the Senate has dwindled, and President Obama was calling lawmakers Monday as both sides hunted support for a showdown vote expected this week. At stake is what has become the heart of this year's gun-control drive in response to December's killing of children and staff at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.

The most dangerous ground to occupy in Washington, it is said, is the space between New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer and a television camera. He's pushy, talks fast, thinks quickly - and is absolutely certain. Even by the standards of a preening profession, Schumer has been noted, since arriving as a congressman from Brooklyn in 1981, for his ability to insert himself into the frame. Last week, though, freshman Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) hip-checked him out of the way. Toomey let it be known in private that he would not attend a news conference announcing a bipartisan deal to expand background checks for firearms sales at gun shows and on the Internet if Schumer, part of the group working on the agreement, was up on the platform near him. In the end, there was no white masking tape on that platform with Schumer's name on it when Toomey and Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.)

By John R. Lott Jr. Everyone wants to keep criminals from getting guns. However, expanded background checks are not the simple answer that Sens. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) and Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) think they are. Unfortunately, as the Senate considers the Manchin-Toomey amendment, Toomey is simply wrong to assert: "It's the people who fail a criminal or mental-health background check who we don't want having guns. " Toomey apparently does not understand how the background-check system works.

Bipartisanship in Washington? A3. The case for wider background checks. Sen. Pat Toomey, D1. Gun deal passes for progress. Editorial, D4.

WASHINGTON - After one of the most remarkable announcements of his public career, Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey sat down in his office with the parents of some of the children killed in the Newtown shootings. Clutching photos of their loved ones, they thanked him. Toomey, a Republican best known for his focus on fiscal issues, had become an unlikely catalyst for advancing the most significant new gun law in two decades. That morning, he had announced a deal with Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.)

SEQUESTRATION. It's an ugly word, one that only Washington could come up with. But for many in Philadelphia, it will be an even uglier reality. The across-the-board federal cuts that resulted from the inability of Congress and the White House to compromise during the 2011 debt-limit standoff officially began last month. Now, city departments are starting to figure out what the cuts will mean for Philly, and it doesn't look good - especially for schools and for programs that help poor people with housing and health services.

WASHINGTON - Here is how Philadelphia-area members of Congress voted on major issues last week: House National Labor Relations Board. Voting 219-209, the House on Friday passed a GOP bill (HR 1120) to halt actions by the National Labor Relations Board, the agency that oversees collective bargaining and other areas of labor-management relations. NLRB operations already have been slowed by a court ruling that President Obama wrongly used recess appointments in January 2012 to fill three vacancies on the five-member board.

WASHINGTON - Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey was an unlikely figure to change the course of the nation's debate over gun laws. But there he was Wednesday, a Republican best known for his fiscal views, standing with a Democrat before a phalanx of cameras to present a bipartisan plan for expanding federal background checks to cover firearms purchases at gun shows and online. "Candidly, I don't consider criminal background checks to be gun control. I think it's common sense," said Toomey, a gun owner who previously received an A rating from the National Rifle Association.