Politics At It's Worst: Congress Ignores The Courts In Schiavo Move & Bush Even Cuts A day From His Vacation (This Is Big)

The New York Times
March 20, 2005
Congress Ready to Approve Bill in Schiavo Case
By ROBIN TONER and CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON, March 19 - Congressional leaders reached a compromise Saturday on legislation to force the case of Terri Schiavo into federal court, an extraordinary intervention intended to prolong the life of the brain-damaged woman whose condition has reignited a painful national debate over when medical treatment should be withdrawn.

Top lawmakers in both the House and the Senate said they hoped to pass the compromise bill as early as Sunday. They said it would allow Ms. Schiavo's parents to ask a federal judge to restore her feeding tube on the ground that their daughter's constitutional rights were being violated by the withholding of nutrition needed to keep her alive.

The White House announced late Saturday that President Bush, who was vacationing at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., would make an unscheduled return on Sunday to Washington, where he would remain until early Monday in anticipation of signing the measure.

Conservative lawmakers scrambled to find a way to override a Florida judge's order Friday to remove Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube. Her husband, Michael Schiavo, has maintained for years that his wife would not want to be kept alive in her current state by artificial means.

Ms. Schiavo suffered extensive brain damage when her heart stopped briefly 15 years ago due to a potassium deficiency; she remains in what doctors have testified is a "persistent vegetative state."

Ms. Schiavo left no written directive. Her husband testified that she had told him she would not want to be kept alive artificially, but her parents maintain that she is responsive, and they want to keep her alive.

Representative Tom DeLay, Republican of Texas and the House majority leader, who is at the center of the Congressional intervention, said on Saturday: "We should investigate every avenue before we take the life of a living human being. That is the very least we can do." In Crawford, the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, said: "Everyone recognizes that time is important here. This is about defending life."

Republican senators had been provided with talking points about how to respond to requests about the Schiavo case, which was described by party aides as a "great political issue" that resonates with Christian conservatives.

Mr. McClellan said that a bill could be flown to Crawford for the president's signature, but that a woman's life was at stake and Mr. Bush did not want to waste a moment. In a phone call to reporters Saturday night, Mr. McClellan dismissed any suggestions that there were political considerations in the president's hurried and dramatic return to Washington. Mr. DeLay and others in the largely deserted Capitol said they were trying to move quickly to limit any health damage to Ms. Schiavo, whose feeding tube was disconnected Friday afternoon.

But Congressional leaders acknowledged that quick approval of the bill was not certain, since it requires that no lawmakers in either chamber object.

While lawmakers wrestled with legislation on Capitol Hill, the debate played out around the country. Social conservatives asserted that it was essential for Congress to step into the long legal battle between Ms. Schiavo's parents and her husband, arguing that her case represents a test of the political system and of the culture itself.

But in random interviews around the country, many Americans questioned why Congress was involved in what is often an intensely private matter. Steve Reed, 57, a clerk at a Chicago law firm, asserted: "It is not the business of Congress." Charles Benjamin, 40, a certified public accountant who lives in Bolingbrook, Ill., said it was "a typical example of government intrusion into our private lives, if you ask me."

Jonathan Wells, 29, an environmental lawyer in Atlanta, said: "It is a family issue. At most it's a state issue. Congress shouldn't step in."

But Nancy Morgan, 37, a dental assistant from Phenix City, Ala., said, "There are some things Congress should stay out of, but on this one, they did the right thing."

Social conservatives, who have generated tens of thousands of calls and e-mail messages in recent days, urged lawmakers to stay in the fight. "Today it's Terri, tomorrow it's another disabled person," said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, one of many groups pushing Congress to act. "We've tolerated abortion in this country for the last 30 years, and now we're talking about eliminating those who cannot speak for themselves."

Advocates of the right to decline medical treatment said that Congressional intervention could set a dangerous precedent.

"In this political climate, with this kind of thing going on in Congress, everyone must take steps to protect themselves - making an advance directive, documenting their wishes, making sure their loved ones know about them," said Barbara Coombs Lee, co-chief executive of Compassion and Choices in Portland and an advocate of Oregon's assisted suicide law.

"The greatest fear of our constituents is that other people - complete strangers - will make end-of-life decisions for them," Ms. Lee added. "And God forbid that it would be politicians."

Bob Nykaza, 43, a security consultant who lives in Hoffman Estates, Ill., said his wife died seven weeks ago from lung cancer, in his arms. "We drew up a living will so we didn't get into a situation like that," he said. "My wife was adamant about letting her go at a specific time."

Mr. Nykaza said he thought it was ridiculous for Congress to step into a case like the Schiavos'. "Don't they have enough to do? Why are they wasting money on that?" he said.

But many social conservatives assert that this is not a typical case. "She wasn't dying until a couple of hours ago when they took her feeding tube out," said Carrie Gordon Earll, with the conservative group Focus on the Family, on Friday. "This is not a good case for the right-to-die movement to be hanging their hat on."

Catholic leaders agreed that the case should be treated differently because it involved a feeding tube.

"It's significant because it does narrow the issue down to food and water," said Cathy Cleaver Ruse, a spokeswoman for the United States Conference of Bishops. "It is really not a case of life-sustaining medical treatment." Ms. Ruse noted that Pope John Paul II said last year that even patients in a "vegetative state retain their human dignity" and had a right to basic care like nutrition and hydration.

The Schiavo case was striking a particular chord among social conservatives because, they said, it showed the power and what Mr. Perkins called "the arrogance" of the judiciary involved in the case. They were all the more enraged on Friday, after a showdown between Congressional leaders and Judge George W. Greer of Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Court, the presiding judge in Ms. Schiavo's case since 1998.

When the House and Senate failed to agree on legislation earlier in the week, House and Senate committees tried to block the removal by issuing subpoenas to Ms. Schiavo and her husband. Judge Greer rejected those efforts, saying Congress had no jurisdiction in the case.

After his ruling, the House committee made an emergency request to the Supreme Court to try to reinsert the feeding tube while appeals were pursued in lower courts, but the Supreme Court rejected the request without comment.

Until now, the House and Senate had been divided over how far to go in giving federal courts new jurisdiction over medical issues like those in the Schiavo case. Conservative House Republicans had raced through a bill that would apply to all "incapacitated persons" and transfer their cases to federal courts if all state legal efforts had been exhausted and they had not executed a living will. The Senate enacted a narrower bill addressing only the Schiavo case.

The changes reached in the compromise were intended to reduce objections by clearly spelling out that the legislation was not intended to set a new precedent. Though it applies only to Ms. Schiavo, as the Senate preferred, the measure will also not be labeled a "private relief" bill, to ease traditional House objections to passing bills for specific individuals. It is rare but not unheard of for Congress to act on behalf of individuals; lawmakers in the last session passed about a dozen such bills, most of them related to immigration.

In an effort to pass this bill, a series of procedural steps were initiated Saturday night, when the Senate met briefly and passed an adjournment resolution. That cleared the way for House and Senate leaders, whose members are scattered around the country and the world on what was to have been a two-week recess, to call an emergency session.

The House will meet on Sunday to try to pass the new measure with the unanimous agreement of both parties. If an objection is raised - and at least three Democratic congressmen from Florida indicated Saturday night that they would object - the House will then wait until immediately after midnight to try again. Should a roll call vote be demanded, members would have to be summoned back.

But if the House is able to act immediately, the Senate is prepared to follow suit under special streamlined procedures that would not require most senators to return.

After the brief Senate session Saturday attended by just four lawmakers, Senator Tom Harkin, the Iowa Democrat who helped craft the legislation, said he was disappointed that the health care drama had been "dragged out in the media" over the past few days when the House could have simply accepted the Senate measure last week. He also took issue with Mr. DeLay, who had lashed out at Senate Democrats for blocking the House proposal.

"I must say I have been quite upset over the last couple of days over the tone and tenor of the words of the majority leader of the House," he told reporters.

Reporting for this article was contributed by Daniel I. Dorfman from Chicago, Ariel Hart from Atlanta, Carolyn Marshall from San Francisco and Elisabeth Bumiller from Crawford, Tex.

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