Gun control, gay rights the focus of potential 2016ers

This week, several potential 2016 presidential candidates took on some of the thorniest issues in politics: gay rights, gun control, the death penalty, and immigration reform.

It all started Monday when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton released a video in which she endorsed same-sex marriage. It's a change for Clinton, who endorsed only civil unions during her 2008 campaign, but a Clinton spokesman said she wanted to speak out ahead of next week's gay marriage arguments before the Supreme Court. Her announcement also catches her up to Vice President Joe Biden, and Govs. Andrew Cuomo, D-N.Y., and Martin O'Malley, D-Md., all of whom previously endorsed same-sex marriage.

After a trip to Rome to attend the installation of Pope Francis earlier in the week, Vice President Biden on Thursday traveled to New York to meet with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and continue pushing for gun control legislation. Biden said the Obama administration still supported an assault weapons band despite Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's announcement that he will not include the ban in gun legislation being readied for the floor.

"We are still pushing that it pass," Biden said in an interview with NPR. "The same thing was told to me when the first assault weapons ban in '94 was attached to the Biden crime bill, that it couldn't possibly pass."

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While Biden was in New York City, further north in Albany, Cuomo was explaining to reporters why he is amending New York's sweeping new gun control law before it even goes into effect. The measure, adopted in the aftermath of the Newtown, Conn., massacre, bans the purchase of magazines with more than seven bullets. The problem? "There is no such thing as a seven-bullet magazine. That doesn't exist, so you really have no practical option," Cuomo said.

So in the midst of negotiating a $135 billion budget deal, Cuomo announced the law would be amended to allow the purchase of 10-bullet magazines. Under the law, however, gun users would only be allowed to keep seven bullets in the magazine at a time. Cuomo said any charges that the change represented a weakening of the gun control law was "wholly without basis."

In Maryland, O'Malley continued to laud his state's decision to repeal the death penalty. "Freedom, justice, the dignity of every individual, equal rights before the law - these are the principles that define our character," O'Malley wrote in an op-ed. "The death penalty is inconsistent with these principles." 

O'Malley will make one of his first trips to an early primary state this weekend. He's scheduled to address the South Carolina Democratic Party at a conference in Charleston Saturday.

Among the Republican 2016 contenders, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., garnered headlines this week for a major policy speech on immigration reform and an upcoming trip to an early primary state.

On Tuesday, Paul told the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce that "immigration will not occur until conservative Republicans, like myself, become part of the solution." But like former Florida Governor Jeb Bush several weeks ago, Paul was muddled over whether he supported a pathway to citizenship for the country's 11 million illegal immigrants. The Associated Press obtained prepared remarks for the speech that endorsed a pathway, but the passage was noticeably absent from Paul's speech when he delivered it.

Later that day, Paul clarified in a conference call with reporters that his proposal would eventually lead to citizenship for illegal immigrants, but he preferred not to call it a "pathway to citizenship." 

Further stoking speculation that Paul is planning a 2016 run, the Iowa Republican Party announced he would be the keynote speaker at its annual Lincoln Day Dinner in May.

Meanwhile, Paul's colleague, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., this week co-sponsored legislation with Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., that would allow more nonlethal aid to flow to vetted Syrian opposition groups. And here's some news you can use: Rubio is no fan of Justin Timberlake. In an interview on CNN, Rubio called the pop star a "talented performer" but said you wouldn't find his music on Rubio's iPod.

Across the Capitol, the House of Representatives Thursday approved Rep. Paul Ryan's budget proposal on a 221-207 mostly party-line vote. Ryan's measure would balance the budget in 10 years and contains a provision to repeal President Obama's health care law. But like Ryan's budget proposals from previous years, this one was defeated in the Senate Thursday night; five Republican senators voted against Ryan's budget.

Outside Washington, Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J., said he had not decided whether to support a bill making its way through the state legislature that would ban the practice of "conversion therapy" on gays.

"Generally philosophically, on bills that restrict parents ability to make decisions on how to care for their children, I'm generally a skeptic of those bills," Christie said at a press conference. "Now, there can always be exceptions to those rules and this bill may be one of them."

At the same press conference, Christie had kind words for Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, who recently endorsed same-sex marriage, but maintained that he still opposes it.

In Louisiana, Gov. Bobby Jindal, R-La., launched a state-wide tour to promote his proposal for eliminating the state income tax.

"For too long, we've talked about getting rid of income taxes and said we need to compete with Texas and Florida," Jindal wrote in an op-ed. "But, we've always just talked and tinkered around the edges of real reform."

The Louisiana state legislature is expected to begin discussing the measure when its session begins on April 8th.

And in the most open acknowledgment of 2016 ambitions, Gov. Rick Perry, R-Texas, told the Florida political blog "the Shark Tank" that he would make a decision about whether to mount a second presidential campaign by the end of the year.