Coming on the heels of the surprise check-mate of the administration and its Senate allies by moderates on judicial filibusters, the administration now faces a new incarnation of Congressional defiance: a vote by the House to ease stem cell restrictions.
This measure now goes to the Senate where many expect it will pass — and in the end face President George Bush’s veto — a veto that would defy polls indicating widespread public support for stem cell research plus perhaps spur on what some polls portray as a steady bleeding of Bush’s popularity numbers.
This story’s basics are fairly simple, enough. It’s just the story’s timing and implications that are more complex. The AP:
Ignoring President Bush’s veto threat, the House voted Tuesday to lift limits on embryonic stem cell research, a measure supporters said could accelerate cures for diseases but opponents viewed as akin to abortion.
Bush called the bill a mistake and said he would veto it. The House approved it by a 238-194 vote, far short of the two-thirds majority that would be needed to override a veto.
“This bill would take us across a critical ethical line by creating new incentives for the ongoing destruction of emerging human life,” the president said Tuesday. “Crossing this line would be a great mistake.”
So the lines are drawn. And once again you can look at what’s happening two ways: (1)the administration is ignoring public sentiment and doesn’t care about governing with consensus or compromising with those with whom it disagrees. It will fully exercise whatever power it can must. OR (2)the administration has a philosophy of governance which maintains that it must create policy and the country and critics will eventually come around to it, partly because they lack the votes to stop it. MORE:
An alternative offered by Republican leaders that would fund research using stem cells derived from adults and umbilical cords rather than from embryos, passed 430-1, with Rep. Ron Paul (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas, the lone opponent. But the focus was on the embryo bill.
Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said the embryonic research bill would force taxpayers to finance “the dismemberment of living, distinct human beings.”
However, AP reports, DeLay’s detailed argument about why stem cell research should be controlled and possibly kept from discovering cures to terrible diseases didn’t save the day:”I don’t need a lecture from the majority leader on moral and ethical leadership,” said Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., referring to questions that have been raised about DeLay’s travel, fundraising and associations with a lobbyist now under federal criminal investigation.
Supporters of the measure said many embryos that would be studied would otherwise be discarded rather than implanted in the wombs of surrogate mothers. The moral obligation, they argued, rested on Congress to fund research that could lead to cures for diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.
“Being pro-life also means fighting for policies that will eliminate pain and suffering,” said Rep. James R. Langevin (news, bio, voting record), D-R.I., who was paralyzed at 16 in a gun accident.
There goes another Republican who will be targeted for removal by GOPers in the upcoming elections. And:
Many members voted for both measures, saying that together they represented hope for the largest number of people critically ill with diseases that scientists say could be treated or even cured through stem cell research.
To support only one measure, said Rep. Sherrod Brown (news, bio, voting record), D-Ohio., would be to “offer hope to some and sympathy to others.”
The more controversial bill, sponsored by Reps. Mike Castle, R-Del., and Diana DeGette, D-Colo., would lift Bush’s 2001 ban on federal funding for new research using stem cells from embryos that had not been destroyed before August 2001.
The House vote on the Castle-DeGette bill was intended mostly as a show of force to help propel it through the Senate and, the sponsors hope, into compromise talks with the White House.
In the Senate, Arlen Specter, R-Pa. and Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, asked Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., to immediately bring the stem cell issue to the Senate floor. Backers of embryonic stem cell research said the measure was supported by 60 senators, enough to break a filibuster by opponents, and could even get a two-thirds majority that would be enough to overpower a presidential veto.
Indeed, Frist can roll out those cots he rent for the planned all nighter on the nuclear option.
The bottom line: if this bill passes the full Congress (as most expect it will) it then puts Bush in the position of vetoing an extremely popular measure. All of what is unfolding now — the Terri Schiavo case, the nuclear option controversy, stem cell research — will be redefining the Republican Party for generations. It’s a matter of political imagery. And what’s interesting is that it isn’t a case of opponents trying to redefine the GOP. It’s the GOP redefining itself — intentionally or otherwise.
The question again becomes whether there is a center in American politics and Bush & Co. are straying from it — and will pay the price. OR if the GOP bigwisgs are more in tune with what most Americans want — in which case the Democrats will pay the price.
But in the end, it could come down to Bush doing his first veto of a bill he opposes for philosophical reasons — a bill supported by a wide number of politicos on both sides and by such people as former first lady Nancy Reagan.
Should we assume Bush’s poll numbers will continue to drop?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.