This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

The day-long sit-in by congressional Democrats to protest the House's lack of action on gun control measures highlighted a trend that undermines the idea of representative democracy as much as gerrymandering does.

It seems that leaders in Congress and in state legislatures are deeming the best way to protect their majorities from voter scrutiny is simply to not have a vote on controversial issues.

That way, the individual members of the majority caucuses don't have to be held accountable to their constituents as a result of their votes.

Democrats staged their protest on the House floor to protest House Speaker Paul Ryan's refusal to allow a vote on some gun control measures, including expanded background checks to stop dangerous people from purchasing assault-type weapons.

Their boiling point was finally reached after the massacre in Orlando that killed 50 people, including the perpetrator.

As Democrats pushed for votes on legislation aimed at making certain firearms purchases more scrutinized, they began showing their frustration by criticizing the speaker's call for a moment of silence to honor the victims while continuing to do nothing to try and curb the violence.

Then, finally, the sit-in that Ryan dismissed as a "publicity stunt."

But here's the rub.

Most of the Republicans in Congress don't want to vote on any kind of gun control measure because they are beholden to the National Rifle Association, which is misnamed because it doesn't really represent rifle owners, the majority of whom favor expanded background checks. No, the NRA represents gun manufacturers and therefore it is compelled to contest any type of legislation that possibly could curb gun sales.

Meanwhile, polls have shown that up to 90 percent of Americans — Democrats, Republicans, independents and Trump sheep — support expanded background checks to keep people like the Orlando shooter from getting assault weapons.

So Republicans in Congress have a dilemma. If they vote, they either make the NRA mad — and they don't want to do that — or make their constituents mad.

And this is an election year.

The solution. Have no vote. Then they don't have to make anybody mad, except for the Democrats who are beyond frustrated with the smoke-and-mirror tactics.

We saw this recently in the Utah House when Speaker Greg Hughes refused to have a vote on the proposed expansion of Medicaid coverage, which a majority of Utahns support.

Hughes justified the no-vote decision by saying the Republican caucus — behind closed doors — overwhelmingly opposed the Medicaid expansion so there was no need to have a public vote.

That way, his caucus members don't have to make the hard core Republican base mad by voting for something that had its roots in a Barack Obama initiative and they don't have to make the majority of Utahns mad by voting against something that majority supports.

So much for representation.

The Utah king of hiding Republican legislators' sentiments from the constituents they supposedly represent, though, has to be Congressman Rob Bishop.

Bishop, along with the other five members of Utah's congressional delegation, was asked by the Deseret News earlier this week what could be done about the epidemic of mass shootings in America.

And Bishop, like the others, gave an obscure response designed to make it look like he answered the question while not really answering the question.

The only honest member of the group was Sen. Mike Lee, who refused to answer the question.

Bishop was speaker of the Utah House in the early 1990s when then-Sen. Robert Steiner, D-Salt Lake City, sponsored a bill to impose penalties on gun owners whose negligence in storing their firearms led to the death or injury of a child.

The NRA and related gun-rights organizations oppose any legislation that might curtail the rights of gun owners, so this one was on the no-fly list.

But if legislators voted against the bill, to appease the NRA, they might look bad to constituents, as the bill was designed to protect children.

To make things worse, then-Rep. Dave Jones brought a group of second graders to the Legislature each day whose class project was to help get the bill passed.

After holding the bill in the Rules Committee for weeks, the Senate, under pressure from constituents, passed the bill near the end of the session and sent it to the House.

The bill came out of the House Rules Committee on the second-to-last day of the session and was scheduled to be placed on the board for a vote.

But it wasn't placed on the board.

Bishop held it. He then held it the next day. He didn't allow it to go on the board until late on the last day when it had no chance for a vote because there were too many bills in front of it.

So his Republican caucus members were saved from the agony of voting against the NRA or voting against the safety of children.

Bishop later left the Legislature and became a paid lobbyist for a gun-rights group. —