Third time might not be a charm for bipartisan retreat

By Times staff writers

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 18, 2000

You know things are bad when even the idealists are thinking about giving up. But that's what it has come to with the 3-year-old drive to improve "civility" in Congress.

The Pew Charitable Trusts, a private foundation that pursues such earnest goals as "strengthening democratic life" and increasing "civic engagement," is wavering on funding a third bipartisan retreat for House members meant to diffuse tensions between the parties.

The idea was that by spending time together in an informal setting, lawmakers might begin to think of their colleagues from the other party as something other than sniveling, back-stabbing, traitors to democracy.

The first retreat was held in 1997 amid a grueling partisan battle over ethics charges against then-Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga. It didn't do much good. By 1999, when the second retreat was held, Republicans had impeached President Clinton. Later, Democrats got back by accusing GOP leaders of anti-Catholic bias in the selection of a Protestant House chaplain.

And so on and so forth.

Michael Delli Carpini, public policy program director at Pew, confirmed a report in Roll Call that the foundation was reconsidering whether to fund a third retreat. But he said no decisions had been made. The retreats, which have been held in Hershey, Pa., cost Pew about $700,000.

The question, Delli Carpini said, is "how much good are we doing?" An answer will come when the Pew board meets later this year to discuss grant requests.

Rep. Brown wants credit where it isn't due

Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Jacksonville) has never been shy about speaking her mind. Thus no one was surprised last week when she punctuated a meeting between Florida state legislators and the state's congressional delegation with an apparently heartfelt complaint.

It seems Brown was upset that the Florida Legislature has been taking all the credit for some new transportation projects in the state. She said she thought members of Congress should share in the credit for these new public works expenditures.

Even when members of the state Legislature reminded her that the projects to which she was referring were funded entirely by the Florida Legislature, she was not going to back down. She demanded the credit.

Her appeal fell on deaf ears, however.

As Brown departed the room shortly after her outburst, it was clear she had won no supporters. Most of the participants just shook their heads and laughed.

Bill on junk e-mail goes to House vote

Consumers upset at the invasion of their online mailboxes by junk e-mail may find relief through legislation making its way through Congress.

A bill approved by the House Commerce Committee Wednesday would create guidelines for "spam," as junk e-mail has been dubbed, and would establish penalties for spammers who do not abide by new rules.

The bill's sponsor, Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., argued that spam is more than an inconvenience. Citing estimates that about one-third of spam is pornographic, Wilson said that regulations are needed to protect children from seeing inappropriate, unsolicited e-mails.

Consumer groups urged lawmakers to pass anti-spam legislation, but organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union questioned whether some of the guidelines violated freedom of speech rights.

Among several new regulations, the bill would require spammers to clearly display their return e-mail addresses so that consumers could ask to be taken off distribution lists. If an e-mail user requested to be removed from a distribution list, it would be illegal for a spammer to continue sending e-mails. In addition, the bill would allow individual Internet service providers, such as America Online, to set their own limits on spamming.

The bill would also allow consumers and Internet service providers to take action against wayward spammers. If a spammer violated some of the new regulations, consumers and service providers would be able to sue for up to $50,000 in damages, depending on the violation.

The next stop for the bill is a vote on the House floor. Similar legislation has also been introduced in the Senate.

-- Staff writers Mary Jacoby, Sara Fritz and Vanita Gowda contributed to this column.

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