The tussle between a gun shop-owning senator and the former president of the National Rifle Association is heating up over a controversial driver license handbook.

And the prospect looks bleaker every day for the vendor who prints the driver license handbook for free in return for the exclusive ability to advertise his “National Safety Commission” driver education courses.

First, Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles chief Julie Jones canceled Ken Underwood’s controversial contract with the state effective at the end of the year.

Then an effort by a seemingly unwitting Sen. Carey Baker that would have given Underwood a leg up on a new contract went nowhere after a senate committee balked at the proposal, saying it appeared to be aimed at rescuing the sole source vendor.

Enter ultra-powerful NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer.

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Sen. Carey Baker’s effort to rescue the vendor who has printed the state’s driver license handbook for five years went nowhere today and seems to be destined for the cutting room floor.

Baker had originally proposed a bill (SB 2342) that would keep Ken Underwood in the running for a contract with the Department of Motor Vehicles and Highway Safety which he now prints for free in exchange for advertising his National Safety Commission driver’s ed schools.

Baker, R-Eustis, rewrote the bill to appease opponents, including Underwood’s competitors, but he asked the Governmental Oversight and Accountability Committee to skip a vote on it today, as he did last week, because it was clear the revisions didn’t pass critics’ muster.

DHSMV chief Julie Jones, who canceled the contract after the end of the year, told the committee that “We need to overcome the perception of an endorsement of one company.”

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