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Congress votes: Keep Schiavo alive
IN CAPITAL: President Bush flies in from Texas to sign the bill.
By ANITA KUMAR, DAVID KARP and CHRIS TISCH
Published March 21, 2005
WASHINGTON - The people who want to keep Terri Schiavo alive marshaled the power of all three branches of the federal government early today in an extraordinary effort that congressional Republicans say will all but force a federal judge in Tampa to reinsert her feeding tube.
President Bush, who left a vacation at his Texas ranch to return to the White House on Sunday, was expected immediately to sign a bill that passed the U.S. House 203 to 58 at 12:41 a.m. today. An attorney for Schiavo's parents said federal judges were poised to act, and predicted her feeding tube would be restored this morning.
"A young woman in Florida is being dehydrated and starved to death," said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay after three hours of emotional debate. "For 58 long hours her mouth has been parched and her hunger pains have been throbbing. ... She is alive. She is still one of us. And this cannot stand."
The U.S. Senate passed the same bill Sunday afternoon.
Clerks were standing by at the Capitol ready to transport the bill to Bush, who ordered staff to awaken him so he could sign the bill.
"Hours do matter at this point," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
In Tampa, federal judges were on call at home in the wee hours of the morning, attorneys in the case said. The judges agreed to review the new law and issue, via e-mail, an order that Republicans hoped would reinsert the tube, said David Gibbs III, attorney for Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler.
Appearing exhausted but relieved, Bob Schindler and Suzanne Vitadamo, Terri Schiavo's sister, made a brief statement outside the hospice after the vote.
"We are very, very, very thankful to have crossed this bridge," Vitadamo said. "We are very hopeful that the federal court and congress will save my sister's life."
Gibbs said he was hopeful things would move quickly.
"Our goal is to get food and water to Terri by 3 a.m.," he said.
In Washington, even as the clock approached midnight, small groups of people were still arriving at the Capitol, in hopes of watching the historic proceedings live from the House gallery.
"We in the Senate recognize that it is extraordinary that we act," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said earlier Sunday. "But these are extraordinary circumstances that center on the most fundamental of human values - the sanctity of human life."
The law the House debated, called "An act for the relief of the parents of Theresa Marie Schiavo," will take the case to federal court in Tampa for a full review of the facts and a determination of whether Schiavo's rights were violated.
Members spoke passionately and in personal terms about Schiavo, though some mispronounced her name and her parents' name.
"No right is more sacred than the right to life," said Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis. "In our deeds and in our actions, we must build a culture of life. Every life has a purpose and no life is without meaning."
But another Republican, Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite of Crystal River, broke with her own party and reversed her earlier support for a Schiavo bill.
"To second-guess the Florida courts, the Florida Legislature and Terri Schiavo's choice is just plain wrong," she said after sitting on the Democratic side of the chamber.
An attorney for Michael Schiavo, who says his 41-year-old wife would not want to live hooked to a feeding tube, acknowledged the judge could order the tube reinserted if he or she wants time to consider arguments or to have attorneys file briefs.
"He could easily order her to the hospital or order reasonable steps to have the tube successfully reinserted," said attorney Hamden Baskin III. "There's no question a federal judge can do that."
Baskin said he thought it more likely the judge would first want to hear testimony about Schiavo, whose feeding tube has been removed twice before, only to be ordered reinserted.
"I think a judge would want some medical testimony, some type of evidentiary hearing before considering to reinsert the feeding tube," Baskin added.
Michael Schiavo appeared on CNN Sunday morning, expressing displeasure over the Herculean efforts in Congress.
"I'm outraged, and I think that every American in this country should also be outraged that this government is trampling all over a personal family matter that has been adjudicated in the courts for seven years," Schiavo said. "I think that the Congress has more important things to discuss."
Baskin said attorneys are poised to immediately argue to a federal judge that the new law is unconstitutional.
If a federal judge orders the tube reinserted, they are prepared to immediately ask the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta for a stay preventing that. If the judge doesn't order the tube reinserted, Baskin said he expects the Schindlers' attorneys to appeal to the 11th Circuit, too.
Republican leaders have been fashioning the new law since Friday, when Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge George Greer refused to let congressional subpoenas interfere with his order that Terri Schiavo's feeding tube be removed. Today would be Schiavo's third full day without food or water.
"The president has adjusted his schedule, the Congress has adjusted its schedule, and we respectfully ask the court to adjust its schedule," Gibbs said. "We feel every moment is urgent, we are considering every second as precious in terms of saving Terri."
She has been in what the courts have ruled is a persistent vegetative state, her brain virtually destroyed after she suffered a cardiac arrest in 1990. Her parents contend she responds to them and would want to live.
The deal between the Senate and House was brokered in private around the clock over the weekend. Finding a compromise had been difficult because of concerns that the law might undermine existing state laws on the right to die, or may create a precedent. But the final bill deals only with Schiavo.
The Senate and House met under extraordinary circumstances on a Sunday - a day not even recognized on legislative calendars. Tourists and the public were allowed into the Capitol to watch the Palm Sunday proceedings.
In debate late Sunday, Republicans cited civil rights cases to bolster their argument for federal review. Democrats cited conservative tenants on state's rights and limiting the reach of federal government.
The two sides spent much of the three hours debating Michael Schiavo's character, Terri Schiavo's diagnosis and trying to figure out what happened to the money the couple received in a medical malpractice lawsuit.
Republicans repeatedly spoke of watching a few minutes of videotape of Schiavo and proclaimed that she could laugh, talk and even swallow - when several doctors have repeatedly said any response from someone in a persistent vegetative state is involuntary.
"Here is what we know," said Jack Kingston, a Republican from Georgia. "Terri is not in a persistent vegetative state. Terri is able to laugh, able to cry and apparently able to hear."
"We're not just doctors, we just play them on C-SPAN," said Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts.
"We're not talking simply about Terri Schiavo. We're talking about a greater issue," said Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C. "How shall we be judged as a civil society, and I submit we will be judged by how we treat the least among us - the young, the mentally disabled, the physically disabled. ... As a federal government, I believe we have an obligation to step forward and say we will protect life."
Sunday's action came after both the Senate and House passed their own bills earlier this week but failed to agree on the same version. Members felt enormous pressure to reach agreement after conservative groups and individuals bombarded their offices with e-mails and calls to keep Schiavo alive.
After days of behind-the-scenes negotiating, it took just three senators to pass the bill on a voice-vote Sunday afternoon in a brief 10-minute session attended by more staffers and tourists than elected officials.
With only about 15 Republican members on the floor, the House met for four minutes just after 1 p.m. Sunday but failed to pass the bill. About 10 Democrats huddled on the floor ready to object to the House taking up the bill, but they were not given a chance. Republican leaders went into recess, and announced they would vote on a bill shortly after midnight.
The House can take up a vote only if no single member objects. But the rules are different Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays when the presiding officer can suspend those rules and allow a bill to proceed.
House rules require that a bill taken up in this expedited way receive a two-thirds majority of those present to pass. Generally, only noncontroversial bills, such as commending a winning team or naming a new post office, are taken up in the same manner as the Schiavo bill was.
For today's early morning roll-call vote, they needed a quorum of 218 members. House leaders were certain they had enough votes but scrambled Sunday to make sure enough members returned for quorum.
The House has 232 Republicans, 202 Democrats and one independent.
Three Floridians, including Tampa's Jim Davis, flew back to Washington Sunday morning.
"If we do not draw the line in the sand today, there is no limit to what democratic principles this Congress will ignore or what liberties they may trample on next," Davis, who is running for governor, said during the debate about 10 p.m. Sunday.
The Senate also needed unanimous consent to take up the bill Sunday. But Frist and Minority Leader Harry Reid worked out a compromise behind the scenes beforehand so even the Democrats opposed to the bill would not return to fight it.
When the bill passed by a voice-vote, only Frist, Martinez and Sen. John Warner were present.
Republicans denied being motivated by politics, but a memo obtained by several media organizations suggested GOP lawmakers could use the case to appeal to Christian conservative voters.
An unsigned one-page memo, distributed to Republican senators, called it "an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue."
The memo added that "this is a tough issue for Democrats."
Republicans distanced themselves from a memo, suggesting GOP lawmakers could use the case to appeal to Christian conservative voters and to force Democrats into a difficult vote. DeLay said he and other GOP leaders hadn't seen the memo and that he would fire any staffer who wrote such a document.
DeLay said the federal district court in Tampa was standing by to accept a petition asking a judge to order Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted while he or she reviews the case.
"The legal issues, I grant, are complicated, but the moral issues are not," DeLay said. "What will it hurt for a federal judge to look at all the evidence and apply it to 15 years of medical advances?"
Federal judges in Tampa agreed to be on call Sunday night to rule on an order to re-insert Schiavo's feeding tube, Gibbs said. A clerk will open the courthouse after midnight to take the new case, he said. Then, the case could get randomly assigned by computer to one of the judges.
That judge, waiting at home, will then rule on the case and send an order by e-mail to the lawyers, Gibbs said.
As fast as that could happen, there also could be action from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. On Saturday at 11 p.m., a clerk with the appeals court asked Gibbs to file a brief about what might happen if Congress passed a new law for Schiavo Sunday.
The appeals court had not yet ruled on a last-ditch attempt by Gibbs on Friday to get federal courts to intervene on the case. Once the law is passed and signed by Bush, the appeals court could then intervene.
In that event, Gibbs said the case would be heard by U.S. District Court James Moody Jr., appointed to the federal bench in 2000 by President Clinton, who turned down Gibbs' motion on Friday.
Even some of the Schindlers' supporters said the federal law might keep Schiavo alive only temporarily. The federal judge who reviews the case could agree with all the previous state judicial decisions and order the tube removed again.
"It could just be a stop-gap measure," said Randall Terry, the national right-to-life activist who is guiding the Schindler's political fight.
Terry knows that from experience: He was protesting outside Nancy Cruzan's hospital in 1990 after a state judge ordered her feeding tube removed. That judge's order came after the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed the Cruzan case and left her fate in the hands of the state court.
In what is considered a landmark end-of-life case, Cruzan died days after her tube was removed. Laws allowing guardians to remove loved ones from feeding tubes became more commonplace. The Schiavo case has presented the most vigorous challenge to those laws in 15 years.
Terry said a state law was the best hope to keep Schiavo alive, which is why he and at least two dozen other protesters hit the road for Tallahassee Sunday.
The Christian conservatives drove off in caravans to take on an unlikely foe: A group of Republican state senators.
Last week, nine Republicans opposed an amendment to change Florida's right-to-die law, which forced Schiavo's supporters to go to Washington for help. Terry vowed Sunday to get the Republicans to change turn sides to pass a bill that would permanently prevent Schiavo's feeding tube from being removed.
As he rallied supporters to travel with him to Tallahassee, Terry reminded Republicans who had helped bring them to power.
"Listen: You rode into office on the rhetoric of family values. It's time to turn your rhetoric into results," Terry said.
It was a not-too-subtle reminder of the role Christian conservatives played in the 2004 election. Their fervent support for Republicans helped President Bush carry the Sunshine State and enabled Republican Mel Martinez to beat Democrat Betty Castor in the race for the U.S. Senate.
Terry acknowledged a change in Florida law could have nationwide affects, much as the Cruzan case did 15 years ago.
"What happens in Tallahassee will affect every state in the union," Terry said.
Times staff writers Candace Rondeaux, Wes Allison and William R. Levesque contributed to this report, which includes information from the Associated Press.
[Last modified March 21, 2005, 06:55:22]
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