In Special Session, Senate Passes Schiavo Bill
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay Reports House Will Reconvene at 9 p.m.
By Mike Allen and Manuel Roig-Franzia
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, March 20, 2005; 5:43 PM
The Senate, in an extraordinary Palm Sunday session, today passed a measure that would give federal courts jurisdiction over the case of Terri Schiavo, a brain damaged Florida woman whose parents are fighting to get her feeding tube reinserted.
The House also met briefly twice this afternoon on the issue but recessed quickly while leaders sought to get members back from their holiday travels for a vote that could come early Monday morning.
President Bush returned to Washington late this afternoon from his ranch in Crawford, Tex., to sign the bill, if it passes.
The legislation is an extraordinary intervention by Congress for a single person, and was prompted by the removal of Schiavo's feeding tube on Friday. It would likely prolong a medical and legal drama that has pitted the incapacitated Florida woman's husband against her parents.
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) announced late this afternoon that the House will begin debate on the Senate bill at 9 p.m., and leaders expect to have a vote shortly after midnight. Although opposition from some Democrats stopped the House from quickly passing the bill this afternoon, he said it will pass the House with "overwhelming bipartisan support."
A handful of House Democrats -- including several from Florida -- held a news conference earlier today denouncing the bill as an inappropriate intervention into a private family matter by federal officials. They argued that the case already has been fully reviewed by state courts and a variety of judges.
Rep. Jim Davis (D-Fla.) said, "This case is a tragedy, but what Congress is trying to do is another tragedy. . . . Congress should be following the law, not trampling the Constitution."
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) disagreed. "Now is the time for us to act," he said on the Senate floor today. "Terri deserves it."
The Senate action today came in an unrecorded, voice vote.
Frist, also, stressed that the legislation was a bipartisan effort. He expressed confidence that the measure would be passed in the House.
In a memo distributed only to Republican senators, the Schiavo case was characterized as "a great political issue" that could pay dividends with Christian conservatives, whose support is essential in midterm elections such as those coming up in 2006.
Schiavo, 41, spent a full day off of nourishment and fluids yesterday at a hospice in the Gulf Coast suburb of Pinellas Park, Fla. Her feeding tube was removed Friday afternoon after a state judge ignored subpoenas from Congress and enforced a deadline that lawmakers had thought they could thwart by declaring her a witness who must be protected for a future hearing they would conduct at her bedside. Late Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court, without comment, denied an emergency request from the House committee that had issued the subpoenas.
Doctors said she could probably live as long as two weeks before dying of dehydration. Schiavo has been in a vegetative state for 15 years after a heart attack brought on by a chemical imbalance caused severe brain damage.
The two-page compromise bill, "for the benefit of the parents of Theresa Marie Schiavo," would give a federal court in Florida the jurisdiction to consider a claim "relating to the withholding or withdrawal of food, fluids or medical treatment necessary to sustain her life."
House Republican leaders had wanted a bill that would apply to similar cases across the nation, but they agreed yesterday to limit it to Schiavo as the main element of the compromise with the Senate. That difference in bills the two chambers passed last week had provoked unusually bitter exchanges between Republican leaders.
Outside Schiavo's hospice in Florida, tension and anxiety rose yesterday among the demonstrators who have turned the roadside into a small tent city. At least three protesters were arrested early yesterday, including a man who said he is a priest and who walked toward the hospice demanding to administer Holy Communion to Schiavo.
Police increased the number of officers guarding the hospice, even as Schiavo's parents -- who are fighting to have her feeding tube restored -- asked demonstrators to refrain from civil disobedience.
In Washington, lawmakers yesterday announced the agreement four hours after Schiavo's mother, Mary Schindler, went before television cameras on her way into the hospice and tearfully begged, "President Bush, politicians in Washington: Please, please, please save my little girl."
Schiavo's husband, Michael Schiavo, raged against Congress in a series of interviews, saying on CNN that the government is "getting in the middle of something they know nothing about."
DeLay said yesterday that he is "confident that this compromise will restore nutrition and hydration to Ms. Schiavo as long as that appeal endures."
He said he did not know if it would mean she would be spared indefinitely. "That's not the point," he said. "The point is that Terri Schiavo should have the opportunity. We should investigate every avenue before we take the life of a living human being, and that's the very least we can do for her."
The tube was also removed for two days in April 2001, after state and federal courts refused to intervene, and for six days in October 2003, after the state judge handing the case determined she had no hope of recovery. The Florida legislature hastily passed a bill allowing Gov. Jeb Bush (R) to intervene.
After the eight-minute Senate session, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said House Republicans should have dealt with the matter last week. "I do not believe there was a need for this to be dragged out in the media yesterday, today and now into the weekend," he said.
Republicans acknowledged that the intervention was a departure from their usual support for states' rights. But they said their views about the sanctity life trumped their views about federalism.
An unsigned one-page memo, distributed to Republican senators, said the debate over Schiavo would appeal to the party's base, or core, supporters. The memo singled out Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who is up for reelection next year and is potentially vulnerable in a state President Bush won last year.
"This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue," said the memo, which was reported by ABC News and later given to The Washington Post. "This is a great political issue, because Senator Nelson of Florida has already refused to become a cosponsor and this is a tough issue for Democrats."
House members today were scrambling to return to Washington from across the country. Leaders acknowledged yesterday that they expected some Democrats to object to the legislation, which would prevent the bill from passing in the House under rules available for today. So House leaders said they will hold the vote at 12:01 a.m. Monday, when they can put the bill on a calendar that would deny Democrats some ways to stall action.
With lawmakers scattered from Iraq to Australia, leaders hope to use parliamentary methods -- such as a voice vote rather than a roll call -- to pass the bills without calling back their entire memberships.
House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said yesterday that the outcome is clear and that it is "just how we get there." He said that if Democrats demand a roll call vote, Republicans will need to come up with 218 votes and two-thirds of the House, and he said it would be "just a matter of time" before enough of the 232 Republicans could be rounded up to do that. A vote would not begin until then.
Roig-Franzia reported from Pinellas Park, Fla. |
