History > 2007 > USA > Politics > Congress

House of Representatives (II)

House May Pass Security Bill Today

July 27, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:31 p.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House is expected to pass a homeland security bill and send it to President Bush as early as today. Last night, the Senate approved the package of security measures recommended by the 9/11 Commission, shifting more federal money to high-risk states and cities and requiring more stringent screening of air and sea cargo.

The measure passed by a 85-8 vote.

House passage would give Democrats a much-needed legislative victory just a week before Congress adjourns for its August recess.

Along with a boost in the minimum wage, which went into effect on Tuesday, the 9/11 Commission bill would be at the top of the Democratic majority's achievement list if President Bush signs it into law.

The White House has expressed opposition to several provisions in the bill, particularly a requirement that within five years all ship containers be scanned for nuclear devices before they leave foreign ports for the United States, but it has not issued a veto threat.

The administration has questioned the feasibility of installing radiation monitoring equipment in more than 600 foreign ports. To soften opposition, the bill's authors gave the Homeland Security secretary authority to delay implementation in two-year increments if needed.

The bill also requires the screening of all cargo on passenger aircraft within three years.

The independent 9/11 Commission in 2004 came out with 41 recommendations to prevent another terrorist attack, covering tighter domestic security, reform of intelligence gathering and new foreign policy directions.

Congress and the White House followed through on several of those recommendations, including creating the new position of director of national intelligence and tightening screening procedures on land borders.

But Democrats, in taking over Congress, charged that the GOP response to the recommendations had been insufficient. The House passed its version of the 9/11 bill on the first day of Democratic control last January, and the Senate approved its bill in March.

Efforts to reach a House-Senate compromise on the issue gained momentum only after Democrats agreed to drop language, which had prompted a veto threat, that would have given airport screeners collective bargaining rights.

Other Democratic priorities have met with less success: Immigration reform couldn't get through the Senate, the president vetoed stem cell research legislation, and the House and Senate were still trying to work out a deal on lobbying reform.

The 9/11 bill would change the formula for distributing federal security grants to ensure that high-risk states and urban areas get a greater share. High-risk cities such as New York and Washington have complained that the current formula, which divides money more evenly around the country, does not reflect the realities of the terrorist threat.

The bill also establishes a new interoperability grant program to assure that local, state and federal officials can communicate with each other and approves $4 billion over four years for rail, transit and bus security.

It strengthens security measures for the Visa Waiver Program, which allows travelers from select countries to visit the United States without a visa and, in another provision opposed by the White House, requires that the total amount appropriated for the intelligence community be made public.

Final House-Senate agreement this week came only after Democrats agreed to a Republican demand that gives protection from lawsuits to people who in good faith report what they believe is terrorist activity around airplanes, trains and buses. The issue grew out of an incident last fall when six Muslim scholars were removed from a Minneapolis flight after other passengers said they were acting strangely. The scholars have filed suit, saying their civil rights were violated.

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The bills are H.R.1 and S.4

On the Net:

Congress: http://thomas.loc.gov/

House May Pass Security Bill Today, NYT, 27.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Homeland-Security.html

Defying Veto Threat, House Passes Farm Bill

July 27, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:34 p.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Democratic-controlled House passed legislation Friday that combines billions in aid to farmers with funds for low-income nutrition programs, defying a veto threat from President Bush over the bill's largesse to crop producers.

The measure, which was passed on a vote of 231-191, devotes more money to conservation, renewable energy, nutrition and specialty crop programs than in the past but leaves in place -- and in some cases increases -- subsidies to producers of major crops such as corn and soybeans at a time of record-high prices.

It reflected a delicate straddle for Democrats writing their first farm bill in a decade, who struggled to balance the needs of first-term, farm-state lawmakers against the demands of liberals seeking more money for environmental and nutrition programs.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the measure ''signals change and shows a new direction in our farm policy,'' but it fell well short of the changes many in her party had demanded.

Democrats rallied around the bill, however, after debate turned bitterly partisan over a tax measure included to finance some $4 billion in food stamp and other nutrition programs. The plan would impose new taxes on certain multinational companies with U.S. subsidiaries.

Democrats said they were closing a loophole and cracking down on foreign tax-dodgers, while Republicans called it a massive tax hike that would affect manufacturers that provide millions of jobs in their districts. The spat sapped the farm bill of much of its customary bulletproof regional appeal, turning many rural Republicans against the measure.

''This is an unprecedented move to use a farm bill as a vehicle to increase taxes,'' said Rep. Adam Putnam of Florida, the No. 3 Republican. ''We could have put the House imprint on the farm bill, and now it is veto bait, and that is a tragedy.''

The legislation aims to ban subsidies to farmers whose income averages more than $1 million a year, down from the current limit of $2.5 million. It also would stop farmers from collecting payments for multiple farm businesses. Still, it includes about $42 billion in assistance to farmers.

It came after Democrats quashed a rebellion from one of their own, Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., who teamed with conservative GOP budget hawks and urban and suburban Democrats on an amendment to wean farmers from government payments. It would have imposed stricter income limits on farmers, barring subsidies to those making an average of $250,000 or more annually, and would have steered more money to conservation, nutrition, specialty crop and rural development programs.

The amendment lost on a lopsided vote, but Pelosi credited it with creating the pressure to invest more farm bill resources in nontraditional programs.

''I had high hopes that this Congress -- given market conditions and our commitment to a new direction for this country -- would have the stomach to reform these outdated and unfair policies,'' Kind said in a statement. But he said his efforts had prompted increases for conservation and nutrition programs, and made ''some modest inroads'' on curbing subsidies.

Still, the overall measure was a huge victory for farmers, who got much of what they asked for in a year when they sometimes feared their priorities would be trumped by Democrats' talk of overhauling the way agricultural money is allocated.

    Defying Veto Threat, House Passes Farm Bill, NYT, 27.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Farm-Bill.html?hp

2 Bush Aides Face Contempt Citations

July 25, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:00 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- House Democrats proposed a contempt citation Wednesday against two White House aides who have refused to comply with subpoenas on the firings of federal prosecutors.

Democrats argued that Congress has nothing to lose by forcing a constitutional showdown with the Bush administration over the protracted controversy that has engulfed the Justice Department and jeopardized Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' job.

''If we countenance a process where our subpoenas can be readily ignored, where a witness under a duly authorized subpoena doesn't even have to bother to show up, where privilege can be asserted on the thinnest basis and in the broadest possible manner, then we have already lost,'' House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., said. ''We won't be able to get anybody in front of this committee or any other.''

Republicans said Democrats couldn't win this fight, noting the White House has offered to make top presidential aides available for private interviews about their roles in the firings. Republicans also suggested that the Democrats' rejection of the offer leaves only one reason for the dispute: politics.

''If the majority really wanted the facts, it could have had them,'' said Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas.

The White House has said that Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former legal counselor Harriet Miers, among other top advisers to President Bush, are absolutely immune from subpoenas because their documents and testimony are protected by executive privilege.

Democrats reject that claim and had drafted for a vote Wednesday a resolution citing Miers and Bolten with contempt of Congress. That would be a federal misdemeanor punishable by up to a $100,000 fine and a one-year prison sentence. If the measure wins support from a majority of the Judiciary and the full House, it would be advanced to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia -- a Bush appointee.

And that's as far as it's likely to go, the Justice Department said in a letter to the committee late Tuesday.

Brian A. Benczkowski, principal deputy assistant attorney general, cited the department's ''long-standing'' position, ''articulated during administrations of both parties, that the criminal contempt of Congress statute does not apply to the president or presidential subordinates who assert executive privilege.''

Benczkowski said it also was the department's view that the same position applies to Miers, who left the White House earlier this year.

If history and self-interest are any guide, the two sides will resolve the dispute before it gets to federal court. Neither side wants a judge to settle the question about the limits of executive privilege, for fear of losing.

But no deal appeared imminent. White House Counsel Fred Fielding has offered to make top administration officials available for private, off-the-record interviews about the administration's role in the firings. But he has invoked executive privilege and directed Miers, Bolten and the Republican National Committee to withhold almost all relevant documents. Miers did not even appear at a hearing to which she had been summoned, infuriating Democrats.

Democrats rejected Fielding's ''take-it-or-leave-it'' offer and advised lawyers for Miers and Bolten that they were in danger of being held in contempt of Congress.

If the citation passes the committee and then the full House by simple majorities, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi then would transfer it to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. The man who holds that job, Jeff Taylor, is a Bush appointee. The Bush administration has made clear it would not let a contempt citation be prosecuted because the information and documents sought are protected by executive privilege.

Contempt of Congress is a federal crime, but a sitting president has the authority to commute the sentence or pardon anyone convicted or accuses of any federal crime.

Congress can hold a person in contempt if that person obstructs proceedings or an inquiry by a congressional committee. Congress has used contempt citations for two main reasons: to punish someone for refusing to testify or refusing to provide documents or answers, and for bribing or libeling a member of Congress.

The last time a full chamber of Congress voted on a contempt citation was 1983. The House voted 413-0 to cite former Environmental Protection Agency official Rita Lavelle for contempt of Congress for refusing to appear before a House committee. Lavelle was later acquitted in court of the contempt charge, but she was convicted of perjury in a separate trial.

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On the Net:

House Judiciary Committee: http://judiciary.house.gov/

    2 Bush Aides Face Contempt Citations, NYT, 25.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Prosecutors-Contempt.html

Congress Asked to Probe Siegelman Case

July 16, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:25 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Forty-four former state attorneys general have asked Congress to investigate whether politics at the Justice Department influenced the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman on corruption charges.

Siegelman, a Democrat, was convicted last year of bribery and other charges. He was sentenced last month to more than seven years in prison.

Democrats have long maintained that his prosecution was politically motivated, and recent allegations that White House officials were steering decisions at the Justice Department have added weight to the claims.

Last month, a Republican lawyer who worked on the campaign of Siegelman's opponent in 2006 signed a sworn affidavit saying that she overheard conversations among GOP operatives suggesting that the White House was involved in Siegelman's prosecution.

''The only way to convince the public that the governor is not the victim of a politically motivated double-standard is for Congress to investigate all aspects of the case thoroughly,'' the former attorneys general wrote to the chairmen of the House and Senate judiciary committees.

The group includes Democrats and Republicans and is led by Jeff Modisett, an Indiana Democrat, Bob Abrams, a New York Democrat, Bob Stefan, a Kansas Republican, and Grant Woods, an Arizona Republican.

Congressional Democrats already are investigating whether the White House ordered the firings of several federal prosecutors last year for political reasons. President Bush and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales have denied any wrongdoing, maintaining that federal prosecutors are political appointees who can be fired by the president for almost any reason.

Bush has, however, acknowledged that Gonzales poorly handled explaining the administration's policy to Congress.

    Congress Asked to Probe Siegelman Case, NYT, 16.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Fired-Prosecutors-Governor.html

U.S. House Backs More Contraceptive Donations Abroad

June 22, 2007
By REUTERS
Filed at 12:44 p.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives ignored a White House veto threat and voted on Thursday to allow government donations of contraceptives to family planning groups outside the United States even though they engage in abortion activities.

By a vote of 223-201, the House voted to lift the prohibition in place since 2001. The move angered anti-abortion lawmakers who see it as a step toward loosening strict controls against using U.S. funds for abortions abroad.

The measure was attached to a foreign aid bill for the fiscal year beginning on October 1 that the Senate has not yet debated. House passage of the bill was expected later on Thursday.

The House bill contains other controversial initiatives, including funding Bush's request for pro-democracy initiatives in Cuba that some Democrats argued have been ill-managed.

While the bill denies Bush's request for more economic aid to Iraq, it would spend $1 million to finance a second Iraq Study Group evaluation of the country, where U.S. forces have been fighting since 2003.

Rep. Nita Lowey, the New York Democrat who wrote the amendment on contraceptives, insisted it would not change prohibitions on funding abortions abroad.

Instead, she said her legislation could help prevent 52 million unwanted pregnancies and 29 million abortions a year. "It would advance the Bush administration's stated goal ... to make abortion more rare and protect women and children," Lowey argued.

Most Republicans were not convinced, saying the donated condoms and other contraceptives would free up funds for groups operating abroad to encourage or perform abortions.

"The violence of abortion will increase" with this initiative, said Rep. Christopher Smith. The New Jersey Republican, a leading abortion opponent, failed to remove the contraceptives language from the bill.

A White House statement issued on Tuesday said Bush would veto a bill that "weakens current federal policies and laws on abortion."

The $34.2 billion foreign aid bill also would fund efforts to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS globally next year.

It also would provide refugee assistance to hot spots around the world, fund anti-drug efforts in Colombia and peacekeeping operations in Sudan, Haiti, Kosovo and other nations.

NO NEW IRAQ FUNDS

The House defeated Republican efforts to include about $200 million for Iraq to pay for infrastructure repairs and other nonmilitary programs. Bush had asked for $456 million.

Democrats, who control the House, opposed any new money, saying the Bush administration had not adequately explained how it would spend $2.86 billion recently provided for Iraq rebuilding in an emergency war-funding bill.

The House bill also would prohibit permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq.

The House halted U.S. funds for the U.N. Human Rights Council. Lawmakers were angered by the council's recent move to end inquiries of Cuba and Belarus, both accused of human rights abuses, while singling out Israel for continued investigation.

The House also cut the U.S. contribution to the U.N. Development Program by $20 million after U.N. auditors recently found the agency violated its own rules in making cash payments to North Korea.

The House approved $1.3 billion for international peacekeeping, rejecting the Bush administration's suggested funding cuts despite expanding U.N. missions in Lebanon and Darfur and a renewed effort in East Timor. Even with the additional House funds, some experts fear there will be inadequate resources for peacekeeping.

    U.S. House Backs More Contraceptive Donations Abroad, R, 22.6.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/washington/politics-usa-congress-aid.html

House Passes Security Bill That President Opposes

June 16, 2007
The New York Times
By JACQUELINE PALANK

WASHINGTON, June 15—The House on Friday approved the spending of $37.4 billion next year by the Department of Homeland Security, calling for significantly more spending than proposed by the Bush administration, including hundreds of millions in extra state and local antiterrorism grants.

President Bush has threatened to veto such a package, saying that it is too expensive and that it includes provisions, like a requirement that department contractors pay their employees more competitive wages, that he opposes. The Senate has not yet passed the legislation.

The spending bill passed 268 to 150. It calls for $2.1 billion in spending, or 6 percent, above the president’s request and 14 percent more than in the current fiscal year.

The bill would double the president’s financing request for state antiterrorism grants to $550 million and set aside $400 million in grants for port security, $190 million more than the president proposed.

Perhaps the most hotly contested part of the bill is a requirement that department contractors pay their employees at least the local prevailing wage. The provision, part of broader Democratic efforts to enact legislation being pushed by unions, would allow the president to waive so-called Davis-Bacon restrictions only in times of national emergency.

The House bill also withholds financing for the department’s new personnel management system until litigation with unions and employees is resolved. In early 2005, they filed suit, asserting that the system would give managers undue power to reward, punish and reassign employees.

Republicans failed in an effort to remove that section from the bill. They also objected to restrictions imposed on the $1 billion allocated to constructing a fence along the Mexican border. Before the money could be allocated, under the Democrats’ plan, communities in the area would have to be consulted.

Representative Harold Rogers, Republican of Kentucky, proposed amendments to address these measures, but they were defeated.

The Senate’s version of the House bill, which it largely resembles, was approved by its Appropriations Committee on Thursday but has not yet been scheduled to go to the floor. It provides a total of $37.6 billion.

The House bill would also effectively delay for a year and a half, until June 2009, the mandate that travelers flying to Canada or the Caribbean carry passports for their return, a delay the administration opposes.

The House bill, brought up for debate on Tuesday, was stalled by Republican amendments designed to protest the Democrats’ decision not to disclose in the bill legislators’ favorite spending provisions, or earmarks.

The Department of Homeland Security operates agencies like Customs and Border Protection, the Transportation Security Administration, the United States Coast Guard, the Secret Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

    House Passes Security Bill That President Opposes, NYT, 16.6.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/16/washington/16homeland.html

Bill Passed in Response to VaTech Attack

June 13, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:08 p.m. ET
The New New York Times

The New York Times*WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House Wednesday passed what could become the first major federal gun control law in over a decade, spurred by the Virginia Tech campus killings and buttressed by National Rifle Association help.

The bill, which was passed on a voice vote, would improve state reporting to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System to stop gun purchases by people, including criminals and those adjudicated as mentally defective, who are prohibited from possessing firearms.

Seung-Hui Cho, who in April killed 32 students and faculty at Virginia Tech before taking his own life, had been ordered to undergo outpatient mental health treatment and should have been barred from buying two guns he used in the rampage. But the state of Virginia had never forwarded this information to the national background check system.

If it moves through the Senate and is signed into law by the president, the bill would be the most important gun control act since Congress banned some assault weapons in 1994, the last year Democrats controlled the House. In 1996, Congress added people convicted of domestic violence to the list of those banned from purchasing firearms.

The bill was the outcome of weeks of negotiations between Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., the most senior member of the House and a strong supporter of gun rights, and the NRA, and in turn, with Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., a leading gun-control advocate.

''This is good policy that will save lives,'' McCarthy said.

The NRA insisted that it was not a ''gun control'' bill because it does not disqualify anyone currently able to legally purchase a firearm.

The NRA has always supported the NICS, said the organization's executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre. ''We've always been vigilant about protecting the rights of law-abiding citizens to purchase guns, and equally vigilant about keeping the guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally defective and people who shouldn't have them.''

Under a gun control act that passed in 1968, the year Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were killed, people barred from buying guns include those convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year in prison, illegal drug users, those adjudicated as mentally disabled, and illegal aliens.

The legislation approved Wednesday would require states to automate and share disqualifying records with the FBI's NICS database. The bill also provides $250 million a year over the next three years to help states meet those goals and imposes penalties, including cuts in federal grants under an anti-crime law, to those states that fail to meet benchmarks for automating their systems and supplying information to the NICS.

The NRA did win some concessions in negotiating the final product.

It would automatically restore the purchasing rights of veterans who were diagnosed with mental problems as part of the process of obtaining disability benefits. LaPierre said the Clinton administration put about 80,000 such veterans into the background check system.

It also outlines an appeals process for those who feel they have been wrongfully included in the system and ensures that funds allocated to improve the NICS are not used for other gun control purposes.

''It was necessary to make some accommodations to address the concerns of gun owners,'' said House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., adding that he would be closely monitoring the provision on restoring gun rights to veterans judged to have mental disabilities.

Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said his group supported the legislation, noting that the Virginia Tech shootings ''tragically demonstrated the gaps in the system that allowed a dangerous person to be armed.''

He said he hoped Congress and the gun lobby would go a step further and extend background checks to all gun sales, not just those licenses dealers covered by current law.

The only dissenting vote in the short House debate on the bill was voiced by GOP presidential aspirant Ron Paul of Texas. He described the bill as ''a flagrantly unconstitutional expansion of restriction on the exercise of the right to bear arms protected under the 2nd Amendment.

McCarthy, in an emotional speech, said that ''this has been a long, long journey for me.'' She ran for Congress on a gun control agenda after her husband was gunned down on a Long Island commuter train in 1993.

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The bill is H.R. 2640

On the Net:

Congress: http://thomas.loc.gov
 
NRA: http://www.nra.org

Brady Campaign: http://www.bradycampaign.org/

    Bill Passed in Response to VaTech Attack, NYT, 13.6.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Congress-Gun-Control.html

House Passes Stem Cell Bill Despite Bush Veto Threat

June 7, 2007
The New York Times
By JEFF ZELENY

WASHINGTON, June 7 — The House gave final Congressional approval today to legislation intended to ease restrictions on federal financing of embryonic stem cell research, sending a bipartisan measure to the White House that President Bush has pledged to veto.

On a vote of 247 to 176, the House overwhelmingly passed the bill, with Republicans and Democrats forging a coalition to authorize federal support for research using stem cells derived from spare embryos that fertility clinics would otherwise discard. The Senate approved the legislation in April.

“Science is a gift of God to all of us and science has take us to a place that is biblical in its power to cure,” said Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California. “And that is the embryonic stem cell research.”

The president has repeatedly vowed to veto the bill, following through on the first veto of his presidency when he rejected a similar stem cell proposal last year, which was passed by the Republican-controlled Congress. Democrats were not certain whether they had the votes to override a veto.

“I am disappointed the leadership of Congress recycled an old bill that would simply overturn our country’s carefully balanced policy on embryonic stem cell research,” Mr. Bush said in a statement. “If this bill were to become law, American taxpayers would for the first time in our history be compelled to support the deliberate destruction of human embryos. Crossing that line would be a grave mistake.”

Critics of the legislation said taxpayer dollars should not be used to increase spending on embryonic stem cell research, particularly in the wake of a new scientific advance reported Wednesday in which biologists believe they can use skin to generate new heart, liver or kidney cells. Such a technique, if proven successful, could sidestep the ethical debates surrounding stem cell research.

Throughout the Congressional debate, several Republicans who oppose the legislation seized upon reports of the new scientific advance.

“How many more advancements in noncontroversial, ethical, adult stem cell research will it take before Congress decides to catch up with science?” said Representative Joseph Pitts, a Pennsylvania Republican, holding up a front-page newspaper account of the scientific discovery. “These have all of the potential and none of the controversy.”

While those who support increasing the federal financing of embryonic stem cell research also hailed the development, they said such advances should not replace expanding research to press for a litany of diseases, including Alzheimer’s and juvenile diabetes.

“We welcome these advances as we welcome all advances in ethical life-saving research,” said Representative Diana L. DeGette, a Colorado Democrat and leading sponsor of the legislation. “However, this new scientific research should not be used as an excuse to say that it is a substitute for embryonic stem cell research.”

While Democrats urged the president to change his mind and sign the legislation into law, they said they would try to build support to override the presidential veto. Their campaign began today, only hours after the bill was passed, when Ms. Pelosi and Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, staged a rare public enrollment ceremony to send the legislation to the White House.

The attempt to override the president’s veto would begin in the Senate, where the bill passed April 11 on a vote of 63 to 34. Even counting the three Democrats who were not present for the vote, the legislation fell one vote shy of reaching the plateau to override a veto.

Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, who leads the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, began circulating a petition today to push for the expansion of the federal financing for the embryonic stem cell research. “Tell President Bush: Stop being stubborn, sign the stem cell bill,” the petition read.

A senior administration official said Mr. Bush, who is traveling in Europe, was not expected to veto the bill until his return to Washington next week.

Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader, said Democrats who pushed the legislation were simply trying to turn the stem cell debate into a political opportunity.

“This is politics. This is not about expanding research,” Mr. Boehner said today. “They understand clearly that the president has vetoed this bill in the past and will veto it again. This is Washington being Washington, trying to score a political points, one party opposed to another.”

    House Passes Stem Cell Bill Despite Bush Veto Threat, NYT, 7.6.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/07/washington/07cnd-stem.html?hp

House Votes to Lift Veil Over Lobbyists’ Donations

May 25, 2007
The New York Times
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

WASHINGTON, May 24 — The House voted Thursday to drag into public view the role that registered lobbyists play in soliciting and collecting contributions for political campaigns, exposing for the first time one of the most effective ways that influence-seekers ingratiate themselves with lawmakers and presidents.

The measure goes to the heart of how Washington does business by uncovering a hidden practice that sprang up as an unintended consequence of restrictions imposed by campaign finance laws. Because those laws cap individual contributions — now $2,300 per campaign — candidates have been turning to well-connected lobbyists to bundle stacks of checks to make up the millions they need to run their campaigns.

Washington lobbyists hoping for access to lawmakers have the greatest incentive to shoulder such fund-raising burdens. But previous election rules required campaigns to disclose only their individual contributors, not the intermediaries who may have bundled them.

The proposed new rule could expose the heavy reliance of many in Congress on Washington lobbyists to raise money for their campaigns.

Lobbyists are not the only bundlers. Only those who spend at least 20 percent of their time on lobbying activities and hold at least two meetings with government officials over six months are required to register as lobbyists, so many of the most influential bundlers will not be affected by the new rule.

For example, Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist now serving a prison sentence for bribery, would be required to disclose his bundling. But Brent R. Wilkes, the military contractor who has been indicted on charges of bribing former Representative Randy Cunningham, Republican of California, would not have had to disclose his extensive bundling.

The measure passed by an overwhelming margin, 396 to 22, but the outcome was uncertain until Thursday afternoon. Even as they prepared to vote for the bill, many lawmakers groused that it would hamper their fund-raising. Its prospects were endangered by behind-the-scenes resistance from business-friendly Democrats, who often have close ties to corporate lobbyists, and by black and Hispanic lawmakers, who argued that their less affluent districts make it hard for them to raise money.

Mindful of campaign pledges to clean up Congressional corruption, however, the leaders of the new Democratic majority kept negotiating, compromising and cajoling into Wednesday night to ensure they had enough Democratic support to pass the measure.

Then, once the bill appeared likely to pass, even skeptical lawmakers clambered aboard, reluctant to cast a public vote that could be interpreted as against openness in government. The Senate passed a similar measure to expose bundling at the start of the year, making it likely that the measure will be sent to the president’s desk.

Washington lobbyists complained that the bill unfairly singled them out among the many other lawyers, industry executives and powerbrokers who also bundle but are not registered lobbyists.

“The concern is that it is unequal treatment,” said Thomas M. Susman, a Washington lawyer and lobbyist who advises many in the industry about the applications of such rules.

“One company does its bundling by using a corporate vice president and the other does the same thing through a lobbyist who represents its business,” Mr. Susman said. “The fact that this law only captures the second example means that you are discriminating against the lobbyist.”

The best public list of major Republican bundlers is the roster disclosed by President Bush’s campaigns. He designated those who raised at least $200,000 as “rangers” and those who produced at least $100,000 as “pioneers.” Fewer than half were registered federal lobbyists.

This year, Senator Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat and candidate for his party’s presidential nomination, has raised more campaign contributions than any other candidate even though his campaign has declined to accept contributions or bundled checks from registered federal lobbyists. (Mr. Obama does accept bundled checks from state-level lobbyists and former federal lobbyists.) Mr. Obama was the primary sponsor of the Senate legislation to require lobbyists to disclose their bundled contributions.

Representative Martin T. Meehan, a Massachusetts Democrat who helped sponsor the House measure, acknowledged that the legislation would not address all bundlers. “This is in the context of lobbying reform,” he said, adding that he would prefer public financing of campaigns so that dependence on bundlers could be eliminated altogether.

Even as they voted for the House measure, some Democrats shrugged off its potential effect.

“I’m for it, but it won’t make much of a difference,” said Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts. “As long as campaigns can spend an unlimited amount of money, they will find a way to get their hands on it.”

Mr. Frank said he was particularly disappointed that the legislation omitted an earlier proposal to ban parties to honor lawmakers at the nominating conventions. He is the chairman of the House Committee on Financial Services, which makes him a prime target of favor-seeking Wall Street firms. He said he dreaded having to reject many invitations.

Still, House Democratic leaders said the bundling measure, part of a broader lobbying bill, delivered on their campaign promises.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the legislation would provide “an unprecedented level of disclosure — both in quantity and quality — on the interactions between lobbyists and legislators.”

Voters would understand the importance, said Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, who is chairman of the House Democratic Caucus and has been a central figure in the negotiations to win support for the bill. “The folks back home participate on Election Day, and on everything else the lobbyists have a bigger voice than they do,” Mr. Emanuel said.

Fred Wertheimer, a veteran government ethics advocate who was involved in negotiations on the measure, said that as late as Wednesday night it was unclear whether the Democratic leaders had the votes to pass the measure.

“But the behind-the-scenes opposition melted away when members were faced with recorded votes on the floor,” Mr. Wertheimer said.

For lobbyists, the bill would turn what had been a one- to three-page, semi-annual disclosure filing into a much lengthier quarterly filing. They would be required to disclose information not only about their bundling, but also about any gifts or meals provided to lawmakers. And the bill would greatly increase the penalties for any violations of disclosure requirements and other rules.

“It is a transfer of liability for the violation of the House and Senate gift rules from the members and staff to the lobbyists,” said Marc E. Elias, a Washington lawyer who represents lawmakers and lobbyists.

Democrats boasted that their bill was more comprehensive than anything the Republicans had accomplished last year. But leaders of the House Republican minority unexpectedly stole some of the limelight by winning majority support for amendments to address what they had called deficits in the bill.

One change applied the lobbyist regulations to lobbyists for state and local governments as well as private companies. Another change applied the bundling disclosure rules to contributions given to political action committees as well as those given to campaigns. A third required lobbyists to disclose the specific earmarks, or pet spending items, that they sought to insert in bills.

As Representative David Dreier of California, the ranking Republican on the House rules committee, said on the floor, “We are all reformers today.”

    House Votes to Lift Veil Over Lobbyists’ Donations, NYT, 25.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/25/washington/25lobby.html

Fannie Mae Oversight Passes House

May 22, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:01 p.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Legislation to tighten federal oversight of the two biggest buyers of home mortgages, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, cleared the House Tuesday.

However, the bill could lose the critical support of the Bush administration because of a new provision trimming the authority of federal regulators.

The vote in the House was 313-104 for the measure providing for stricter federal supervision of the two government-sponsored companies, which together finance or guarantee more than three-quarters of U.S. home mortgages. The legislation also would create a housing aid fund -- worth as much as $3 billion -- to be financed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The legislation is the product of a compromise between majority Democrats in the House and the administration.

    Fannie Mae Oversight Passes House, NYT, 22.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Congress-Mortgage-Giants.html

House Approves Bill to Combat Spyware

May 22, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:51 p.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House passed legislation Tuesday to combat the criminal use of Internet spyware and scams aimed at stealing personal information from computer users.

Spyware, said bill sponsor Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., ''is one of the biggest threats to consumers on the Internet.'' She and other lawmakers cited estimates that up to 90 percent of computers in this country are infected with some form of spyware.

Spyware is software that secretly collects information about a person or organization and sends it to another entity without the user's consent.

Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., cosponsor of the bill, said it had been written so that it ''protects consumers by imposing stiff penalties on the truly bad actors'' while protecting legitimate online businesses that are developing new services to keep track of user preferences.

The bill makes it a criminal offense, subject to a prison term of up to five years, to access a computer without authorization to further another federal criminal offense. Obtaining or transmitting personal information with the intent of injuring or defrauding a person or damaging a computer is punishable by up to two years in prison.

The measure approves $10 million a year over the next four years to help the Justice Department fight other computer scams such as ''phishing'' -- the use of fake e-mails or Web sites to trick consumers into providing bank account, credit card or other personal information -- and ''pharming,'' where hackers redirect Internet traffic to fake sites in order to steal personal information.

Similar bills have been approved by the House in past sessions of Congress, but have yet to clear the Senate.

------

The bill is H.R. 1525.

On the Net:

Congress: http://thomas.loc.gov/

    House Approves Bill to Combat Spyware, NYT, 22.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Spyware.html

Democrats Agree on $2.9 Trillion Budget

May 16, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:20 p.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congressional Democrats Wednesday announced agreement on a $2.9 trillion budget blueprint for 2008, promising a budget surplus in five years but only by allowing some of President Bush's tax cuts to expire.

The nonbinding plan, to be officially released later Wednesday, caps weeks of private negotiations and paves the way for action this summer on annual spending bills totaling $1.1 trillion for the coming fiscal year.

The Democratic budget promises a $41 billion surplus in 2012, but does so by assuming taxes on income, dividends and stock sales go up in 2011 instead of being extended as called for by Republicans and Bush. Republicans credit the tax cuts, passed in 2001 and 2003, with reviving the economy, but most Democrats say they are tilted in favor of wealthier taxpayers.

Tax cuts aimed at the middle class could be renewed under the compromise, including provisions establishing a 10 percent rate on the first $12,000 of a couple's income, as well as relief for married couples, people with children and those inheriting large estates.

To extend the middle class tax cuts would cost about $180 billion over 2011-12; extending the rest of the 2001 and 2003 tax bills would cost about $240 billion over the same period.

The Democratic plan would also restore a ''pay-as-you-go'' rule that requires tax cuts or spending increases in benefits programs such as Medicare, children's health care or farm subsidies to be financed by spending cuts or tax increases elsewhere so as to not worsen the deficit.

The budget plan is not binding but sets goals for subsequent tax and spending bills. It makes a statement about the priorities of majority Democrats and provides an early test for the party to prove it can govern.

The House will vote on the measure Thursday and a Senate vote could also come this week.

Democrats said the emerging plan would bring to an end a steady string of deficits, producing a $41 billion surplus in five years. Democrats blame Bush for putting the budget back in deficit after taking office amid projections of $5.6 trillion worth of surpluses over the subsequent decade.

''We've been placed in a deep hole,'' said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D. ''This plan will begin to dig us out.''

But the need to pass the budget exclusively with Democratic votes forced lawmakers such as Conrad and House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt Jr., D-S.C., to draw up a document with few if any politically risky initiatives that could have bled support from the plan.

Democrats took a pass on overhauling federal retirement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, which are threatened with insolvency in coming decades with the retirement of the Baby Boom generation. They instead hope to address shortfalls in benefit programs after the 2008 election as part of broader talks that would also determine the future of the Bush tax cuts.

The top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, said the Democratic plan would produce ''the largest tax increase in U.S. history, billions in new spending, and no attempt to address the long-term fiscal crisis'' looming in federal retirement programs and the Medicaid health care program for the poor and disabled.

The Democratic plan produces its modest $41 billion surplus in 2012 with some shaky assumptions. For instance, it does not provide for any spending on military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan after 2009, and it fails to provide funding for a long-term fix to the alternative minimum tax that threatens to ensnare about 20 million additional taxpayers unless addressed.

The plan also sets up a big confrontation with the administration, which has promised to veto appropriations bills -- the 12 annual spending measures funding Cabinet agency budgets -- that bust Bush's budget targets.

Democrats promise to fully fund Bush's whopping 11 percent hike in the Pentagon's budget, but Bush objects to their plans for increases averaging 5 percent for domestic agencies such as the departments of Education, Labor, Health and Human Services and Homeland Security.

The budget would also allow Democrats to use fast-track procedures to overhaul college aid programs, providing billions of dollars in additional aid for students -- financed by reducing subsidies to lenders.

The special procedures allow Democrats to sidestep the possibility of a GOP filibuster in the Senate, which is likely to allow them to take a more aggressive posture in curbing lender subsidies.

    Democrats Agree on $2.9 Trillion Budget, NYT, 16.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Congress-Budget.html

House passes

Iraq funds bill Bush would veto

Fri May 11, 2007
6:57AM EDT
Reuters
By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives defied President George W. Bush on Thursday and passed an Iraq war funds bill providing only enough money to continue combat for two or three months, without a guarantee of future funding.

By a vote of 221-205, the House approved the Democratic-backed bill giving Bush $42.8 billion in emergency military funds for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But in a Democratic drive to bring the four-year-old Iraq war to an end, the bill would withhold an additional $52.8 billion until late July, after Bush submits progress reports. Lawmakers then would decide whether to use this second batch of money to continue combat, or bring U.S. troops home.

Bush wants the nearly $100 billion up front and without conditions. "I'll veto the bill if it's this haphazard, piecemeal funding," Bush said earlier in the day.

The war-funding debate now moves to the Senate, which will try to amend the House bill enough to avert a second Bush veto. On May 1, Bush rejected a Democratic-backed bill that would have started U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq by October 1, with a non-binding goal of removing all combat soldiers by March 31.

Senators appear more willing to give Bush the $100 billion at once. Still unknown is how far the Senate might go in setting binding "benchmarks" to measure progress in Iraq.

Bush said he'll back benchmarks but he and congressional Republicans do not want to spell out actions the U.S. would take if Iraqi progress in securing the country falls short.

Arguing for the House's latest war-funding plan, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, said, "The president of the United States himself has stated that our commitment in Iraq is not open ended. That's what this legislation says."

DEEP DIVISIONS

During a daylong debate that demonstrated deep divisions in Congress, Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat, said, "We need to get our troops out of the killing zone."

While Democrats praised U.S. troops for achieving every major mission they've been assigned, Democrats blamed Bush for mishandling the war by failing to craft a successful political strategy for Baghdad.

As evidence, Murtha described a country worse-off than before the war began in March 2003. Iraq's oil and electricity production are below pre-war levels, there is less potable water than when Iraqi President Saddam Hussein ruled and Iraqis are sagging under steep price inflation and high unemployment rates, he said.

The war also has killed 3,381 U.S. soldiers and injured more than 24,000, and Iraqis have suffered worse losses during sectarian strife that Democrats have labeled a civil war.

Rep. Jerry Lewis of California, the senior Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, countered that Democrats' reluctance to fully fund the troops "clearly calls into question their commitment to men and women in uniform."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in a letter to Congress, said the House Democrats' two-step funding plan "would cause significant disruptions to the effective and efficient operation" of the military. He said the prolonged fight with Congress over war funding also "negatively impacts our forces in the field" by delaying mine-resistant vehicles and other combat equipment.

While most Republicans voted against the House bill, some have begun to put Bush on notice that without a turnaround in Iraq by September or October, their support for continuing the war might not be guaranteed.

Lawmakers from both political parties have been particularly irked over tentative plans by Iraq's parliament to take a long summer break, with U.S. troops still in danger.

Staunch anti-war Democrats on Thursday pushed for a complete withdrawal of combat troops by early 2008. While they lost on a 255-171 vote, backers said the vote demonstrated a sizable portion of the House wants to end the unpopular war.

    House passes Iraq funds bill Bush would veto, R, 11.5.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN2039858620070511?src=051107_0643_TOPSTORY_democrats_defy_bush_veto_threat

House Passes

Ban on Gifts From Student Lenders

May 10, 2007
The New York Times
By SAM DILLON and JONATHAN D. GLATER

WASHINGTON, May 9 — The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to ban gifts and payments by student loan companies to universities, showing bipartisan resolve to clean up the $85 billion industry.

The vote, 414 to 3, demonstrated how politically potent the issue of paying for college has become at a time when tuition is steadily rising and millions of students depend on borrowing to finance college.

“With this vote,” said Representative George Miller, the California Democrat who leads the House education committee, “the House has taken a huge step in the right direction to put a stop to those practices and make sure that the student loan programs operate on the level, in the best interests of students and families trying to pay for college.”

The bill passed a day before Education Secretary Margaret Spellings was scheduled to testify before the House education committee about oversight of the industry.

It comes in the wake of revelations that lenders paid universities money contingent on student loan volume, gave gifts to the financial aid administrators whom students rely on to recommend lenders, and hired financial aid officials as paid consultants.

The nation’s four largest student lenders and at least 22 colleges have already signed on to a code of conduct developed by Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo of New York.

Mr. Miller was joined by the ranking Republican on his committee, Representative Howard P. McKeon of California, in promoting the bill. “We’re stepping up today for a single, fundamental reason,” Mr. McKeon said before the vote, “to ensure our nation’s financial aid system continues to serve the needs of our students.”

But he also urged that Congress be careful “not to overreach.” The bill has bipartisan support in the Senate, said Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of the education committee.

A senior Education Department official said that the agency was prepared to move quickly to draft regulations to enforce the bill.

Ms. Spellings is expected to face tough questions Thursday about the department’s policing of the industry, as well as about enforcement of its own internal policies on conflicts of interest after reports that an official with oversight over the student loan database held stock in a student loan company.

Ms. Spellings’s chief of staff, David Dunn, said in an interview that the secretary wanted to “set the record straight” and show that the department had taken the steps it could to regulate lenders. Ms. Spellings has convened a task force that is to make recommendations by the end of May on how to regulate the lists of recommended lenders at university aid offices.

Ms. Spellings is also expected to face questions about the oversight of Reading First, a program designed to teach poor children to read by third grade. The department’s inspector general, John P. Higgins, has issued reports finding conflicts of interest, cronyism and bias in how officials and private consultants operated the program and awarded grants.

Mr. Kennedy, in a report, added new detail Wednesday on how four officials contracted by the education agency to advise states on buying reading materials had lucrative ties with publishers.

Edward Kame’enui, head of the department’s western technical assistance center in Oregon from 2002 through May 2005, earned hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties from Pearson/Scott Foresman from 2001 to 2006, the report said. It also said that Douglas Carnine, who replaced Dr. Kame’enui in 2005, also earned royalties — $168,470 from McGraw-Hill, Houghton Mifflin and Pearson last year.

Joseph Torgesen, who advised Eastern states about materials, and Sharon Vaughn, who advised Central states, also received thousands of dollars in royalties from educational publishers while representing the department, the report said.

Katherine McLane, a department spokeswoman, said: “The department is deeply concerned about conflicts of interest and takes the allegations contained in Senator Kennedy’s report very seriously.

“We are studying this report to determine if further actions are necessary and will act aggressively if any wrongdoing is found.”

    House Passes Ban on Gifts From Student Lenders, NYT, 10.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/10/washington/10loans.html

House Votes

to Expand Hate-Crime Protection

May 4, 2007
The New York Times
By DAVID STOUT

WASHINGTON, May 3 — The House of Representatives voted on Thursday to extend hate-crime protection to people who are victimized because of their sexuality. But the most immediate effect may be to set up another veto showdown between Democrats and President Bush.

By 237 to 180, the House voted to cover crimes spurred by a victim’s “gender, sexual orientation, gender identity” or disability under the hate-crime designation, which currently applies to people who are attacked because of their race, religion, color or national origin.

“The bill is passed,” Representative Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who is gay, announced to applause, most of it from Democrats.

Companion legislation is moving through the Senate. But even assuming that a bill emerges from the full Congress, it will face a veto by President Bush on the grounds that it is “unnecessary and constitutionally questionable,” the White House said. The vote to approve the bill did not come close to the two-thirds needed to override a veto.

The bill approved by the House, worded to cover people who are transsexual and transgender, would make it easier for federal authorities to take part in hate-crime investigations if local investigators are unable or unwilling to pursue them. The current hate-crime law protects people only while they are engaged in a federally protected activity, like voting or going to school, but the bill would lower the barriers.

Debate over the legislation has been spirited, and while some of it has addressed whether the bill is necessary, the arguments in the House chamber and beyond have been colored by issues of conscience and personal morality.

“This is a historic day that moves all Americans closer to safety from the scourge of hate violence,” said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a major backer of the legislation.

Judy Shepard, whose son Matthew was murdered in an anti-gay hate crime in Wyoming in 1998, said in a statement, “I am personally grateful to the United States House for recognizing the grave reality of hate crimes in America.”

Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland and the majority leader, said the House vote represented “a statement of what America is, a society that understands that we accept differences.”

But Representative John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio and the minority leader, said the bill made no sense: “We’re going to put into place a federal law that says that not only will we punish you for the crime that you actually commit, the physical crime that you commit, but we’re also going to charge you with a crime if we think that you were thinking bad things about this person before you committed the crime.”

And Representative Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana, called the bill “unnecessary and bad public policy.” While he finds racism and sexism “abhorrent,” Mr. Pence said, the bill’s language is so broad that it could encroach on free speech.

Representative John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan, disagreed and said the bill reaffirmed rights of free speech. Mr. Conyers, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, sponsored the measure, along with Representative Mark Steven Kirk, Republican of Illinois.

James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, told his radio listeners that the bill’s real purpose was “to muzzle people of faith who dare to express their moral and biblical concerns about homosexuality,” according to The Associated Press.

But Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts and a supporter of the Senate legislation, said he was pleased that the House had rejected the Bush administration’s “misguided attempt” to block the bill. “It’s long past time for Congress to do more to prevent hate crimes and insist that they be fully prosecuted when they occur,” Mr. Kennedy said.

The legislation restated punishments already enacted, up to life in prison for the most serious crimes.

The White House said the administration favored stiff penalties for violent crime, “including crime based on personal characteristics, such as race, color, religion or national origin.” But it asserted that the bill was redundant to state and local laws, and of dubious constitutionality. If it reaches the president, “his senior advisers would recommend that he veto the bill,” the White House said.

Twenty-five Republicans joined 212 Democrats in voting for the bill. Fourteen Democrats joined 166 Republicans in opposing it.

    House Votes to Expand Hate-Crime Protection, NYT, 4.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/04/washington/04hate.html

War Bill Passes House,

Requiring an Iraq Pullout

April 26, 2007
The New York Times
By CARL HULSE and JEFF ZELENY

WASHINGTON, April 25 — The House on Wednesday narrowly approved a $124 billion war spending bill that would require American troops to begin withdrawing from Iraq by Oct. 1, setting the stage for the first veto fight between President Bush and majority Democrats.

Only hours after Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander in Iraq, told lawmakers he needed more time to gauge the effectiveness of a troop buildup there, the House voted 218 to 208 to pass a measure that sought the removal of most combat forces by next spring. Mr. Bush has said unequivocally and repeatedly that he will veto it.

“Last fall, the American people voted for a new direction in Iraq,” said Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California. “They made it clear that our troops must be given all they need to do their jobs, but that our troops must be brought home responsibly, safely, and soon.”

Republicans accused Democrats of establishing a “date certain” for America’s defeat in Iraq and capitulating to terrorism.

“This bill is nothing short of a cut and run in the fight against Al Qaeda,” said Representative Harold Rogers, Republican of Kentucky.

On the final vote, 216 Democrats and 2 Republicans supported the bill; 195 Republicans and 13 Democrats opposed it.

The Senate is expected on Thursday to approve identical legislation, which provides more than $95 billion for combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through Sept. 30, with the money conditioned on the administration’s willingness to accept a timetable for withdrawal and new benchmarks to assess the progress of the Iraqi government.

Democratic leaders plan to send the bill to the White House early next week — coinciding with the fourth anniversary of Mr. Bush’s May 1, 2003, speech aboard an aircraft carrier when he declared the end of major combat operations before a banner that said “Mission Accomplished.”

At the White House, Dana Perino, the deputy press secretary, released a statement minutes after the vote, calling the bill “disappointing legislation that insists on a surrender date, handcuffs our generals, and contains billions of dollars in spending unrelated to the war.”

With the outcome essentially preordained, advocacy groups on both sides of the issue were readying campaigns to try to shape public opinion as the showdown unfolds.

Groups aligned with the Democrats plan to capitalize on the connection between the veto and the “mission accomplished” anniversary. Americans United for Change has produced a television commercial that replays scenes of Mr. Bush on the carrier and says: “He was wrong then. And he’s wrong now. It’s the will of one nation versus the stubbornness of one man.”

Allies of the president are mobilizing as well. The conservative Web site Townhall.com was organizing an online “no surrender” petition, and urging visitors to the site to tell the Democratic Party’s “rogues’ gallery that we will not stand for their defeatism,” adding, “While they may lack courage, our troops do not and they deserve the resources needed to win this war.”

With the vote barely behind them, House Democrats were already considering how to respond legislatively to Mr. Bush’s veto. Though there are differing ideas, Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, a Democrat who oversees defense appropriations, said his preference would be to “robustly fund the troops for two months,” and include benchmarks but no timetable for withdrawal.

The briefing by General Petraeus and other senior Pentagon officials appeared to do little to influence the House vote. Lawmakers said the commander had made no overt plea for them to oppose the legislation, which provides more money for the Pentagon than the president had sought for the war as well as billions of dollars for other unrelated projects.

“I’m not going to get into the minefield of discussions about various legislative proposals,” General Petraeus told reporters at the end of the two briefings. “I don’t think that is something military commanders should get into.”

The general pointed to a drop in sectarian killings and security gains in Anbar Province as improvements in recent weeks but referred to reversals as well. “The ability of Al Qaeda to conduct horrific, sensational attacks obviously has represented a setback and is an area in which we are focusing considerable attention,” he said.

Lawmakers, speaking on condition of anonymity because the briefings in the House and Senate were classified, said that while the general had pointed to successful weapons seizures and a substantial drop in killings as evidence of progress, he and the others could not quantify how they would evaluate future success.

Lawmakers who attended a session said General Petraeus had said he would need until September to judge whether the troop increase was meeting its goals in quelling the sectarian and terrorism-related violence in Iraq.

In addition to General Petraeus, lawmakers in the House and Senate heard from Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England, Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte and Adm. Edmund P. Giambastiani Jr., vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

As they walked into the House briefing, the officials were greeted by about a dozen war protesters, some of whom shouted: “War criminal! War criminal!” One woman walked alongside the general, urging him in a softer tone to consider her point of view.

After the briefing, Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader, disputed criticisms that Democrats were trying to end the war before giving the administration’s plan a chance to succeed.

“Nobody is saying get out tomorrow,” Mr. Hoyer said, noting that the legislation would allow American troops to stay in Iraq to battle terrorist groups.

He and Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader, differed on what emerged from the briefing as the most significant cause of violence in Iraq. Mr. Hoyer attributed it to sectarian strife, while Mr. Boehner cited Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, calling the group “the major foe that we face in Iraq today.”

Republicans took issue with the absence from the briefing of Ms. Pelosi, who had talked by telephone to General Petraeus. “This latest insult to our troops should come as no surprise since others in the Democrat leadership have declared the war lost,” said Representative Geoff Davis, Republican of Kentucky. A similar message reverberated on talk radio and cable television news programs on Wednesday.

Aides said Ms. Pelosi was working on the vote count in her office and meant no disrespect to the military commander but had already heard his Iraq report. Democrats also noted that Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and a defender of the war, was out of town, announcing his presidential campaign in New Hampshire.

Democrats sought to portray their approach as reasonable and called for Mr. Bush to reconsider before sending the bill back to Congress, where Republicans hold enough votes to sustain his position.

“I believe that this legislation, if people were to just take their time and read it, is the exit strategy that the president ought to be pleased to receive,” said Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the Democratic whip.

But Republicans called it a dubious attempt at micromanaging the war and said Democrats were also seizing the opportunity to stuff the bill with home-state spending.

The president’s allies, aware of public dissatisfaction with the war, acknowledged the difficulties on the ground in Iraq while portraying the Democratic approach as a prescription for defeat.

“It’s been ugly, it’s been difficult, it has been very painful,” said Representative David Dreier, Republican of California. “We all feel the toll that has been taken and are fully aware of the price we are paying, especially in a human sense. But we do not honor those who have sacrificed by abandoning the mission.”

The House vote on Wednesday and the preceding debate closely resembled those of one month ago, when the House passed its initial version 218 to 212.

    War Bill Passes House, Requiring an Iraq Pullout, NYT, 26.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/26/washington/26cong.html

House Panel

Seeks to Force Rice

to Testify on Iraq Claims

April 25, 2007
The New York Times
By DAVID STOUT

WASHINGTON, April 25 — A House committee voted this afternoon to subpoena Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as it presses an inquiry into the claims, long since discredited, that Iraq sought uranium from Niger.

The vote by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform was 21 to 10. All the “yes” votes were cast by Democrats, and all the “no” votes by Republicans.

The vote to subpoena Ms. Rice, coupled with a vote by the House Judiciary Committee vote a short time earlier to grant immunity to a former Justice Department official involved in the dismissals of eight United States attorneys, reflect the new power of Democrats as they fulfill their desire to subject the Bush administration to closer scrutiny than it had in the years that Republicans were in control.

But the oversight committee chairman, Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, said before the vote that he took no pleasure in authorizing a subpoena against the Secretary of State.

“For four years, I have been trying to get information from Condoleezza Rice on a variety of issues, including the reference to uranium and Niger in the president’s 2003 State of the Union speech,” Mr. Waxman said, alluding to the assertion that preceded the American-led military campaign that toppled Saddam Hussein.

“In the last seven weeks, I have sent four letters to Secretary Rice and received three responses from her staff,” Mr. Waxman said. “My request is simple. I would like Secretary Rice to suggest a date that would be convenient for her to testify before our committee.”

Mr. Waxman said Ms. Rice had already testified on Capitol Hill seven times this year, and that there was “nothing extraordinary” about his panel’s request. “I regret — I deeply regret — that the secretary of state is giving us no choice but to proceed with a subpoena,” he said.

The vote by Mr. Waxman’s committee came just after the House Judiciary Committee voted to grant immunity to Monica Goodling, a former top aide to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, to force her to testify in the inquiry into the dismissals of eight United States Attorneys.

The vote was 32 to 6, easily surpassing the two-thirds necessary to confer immunity on a witness. The committee then authorized a subpoena against Ms. Goodling by voice vote, although the panel’s chairman, Representative John Conyers of Michigan, said he hopes Ms. Goodling will appear voluntarily.

“I do not propose this step lightly,” Mr. Conyers told the panel, according to The Associated Press. “We can always stop the process before the court issues an order.”

As the House committee voted, the Senate Judiciary Committee was also meeting to consider subpoenas in the continuing investigation of the firings. The Senate panel voted to authorize a subpoena of Sara Taylor, the White House political affairs director, to get around what Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who heads the panel, called White House “stonewalling.”

The vote to ask a federal court to grant immunity to Ms. Goodling — so long as she tells the truth — was not exactly a surprise, since she notified the Senate Judiciary Committee through her lawyer on March 26 that she would invoke her constitutional right against self-incrimination and decline to appear.

The lawyer said Ms. Goodling was invoking her Fifth Amendment right not because she had anything to hide, but because she did not expect fair treatment in the current climate of political hostility.

Those House Judiciary members who voted to grant her immunity hope that Ms. Goodling, who resigned on April 6, will offer details into the role of the White House political adviser Karl Rove in the prosecutors’ firings. Ms. Goodling acted as a liaison between the Justice Department and the White House.

United States attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president and can be dismissed at any time. But even Republicans have complained that the eight firings were handled clumsily at best, and Democrats have said improper political motives may be behind the dismissals — that those fired may have been too vigorous in going after Republicans, or not vigorous enough in pursuing Democrats.

The House Judiciary Committee has 22 Democrats and 17 Republicans. The vote to confer immunity on Ms. Goodling attracted considerable Republican support.

Mr. Waxman has made no secret of his eagerness to investigate the Bush administration. “My goal is to conduct investigations without subpoenas,” he said today. “But if we are stonewalled, we can’t hesitate to use the power was have.”

The Waxman committee postponed consideration of two other subpoenas, of the former White House chief of staff Andrew H. Card Jr. and of documents related to contacts between the White House and a federal contractor implicated in bribery charges. Mr. Waxman said the White House had shown some cooperation on those issues, so there was no immediate need to seek subpoenas.

    House Panel Seeks to Force Rice to Testify on Iraq Claims, NYT, 25.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/25/washington/25cnd-subpoena.html?hp

Lawmakers Open

Hearing on Tillman and Lynch

April 24, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:16 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Pat Tillman's brother accused the military Tuesday of ''intentional falsehoods'' and ''deliberate and careful misrepresentations'' in portraying the football star's death in Afghanistan as the result of heroic engagement with the enemy instead of friendly fire.

''We believe this narrative was intended to deceive the family but more importantly the American public,'' Kevin Tillman told a hearing of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee. ''Pat's death was clearly the result of fratricide,'' he said.

''Revealing that Pat's death was a fratricide would have been yet another political disaster in a month of political disasters ... so the truth needed to be suppressed,'' said Tillman, who was in a convoy behind his brother when the incident happened three years ago but didn't see it.

He said the Tillman family has sought for years to get at the truth about Pat Tillman's death.

''We have now concluded that our efforts are being actively thwarted by powers that are more interested in protecting a narrative than getting at the truth and seeing justice is served,'' he said.

Tillman was killed on April 22, 2004, after his Army Ranger comrades were ambushed in eastern Afghanistan. Rangers in a convoy trailing Tillman's group had just emerged from a canyon where they had been fired upon. They saw Tillman and mistakenly fired on him.

Committee chairman Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., contended that the federal government invented ''sensational details and stories'' about the death of Pat Tillman and the rescue of Jessica Lynch from Iraq.

''The government violated its most basic responsibility,'' said Waxman.

    Lawmakers Open Hearing on Tillman and Lynch, NYT, 24.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Tillman-Friendly-Fire.html

House Subpoenas

More U.S. Attorney Files

April 11, 2007
The New York Times
By DAVID JOHNSTON

WASHINGTON, April 10 — House Democrats on Tuesday subpoenaed more documents from the Justice Department, ratcheting up efforts to obtain unedited copies of hundreds of documents pertaining to personnel matters surrounding last year’s dismissals of eight United States attorneys.

The new demand for more documents came as Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales spent nearly five hours working with aides in preparation for his appearance next Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Defenders and critics alike say the hearing could determine whether he remains in office.

In addition, Mr. Gonzales announced a significant personnel decision, naming as his new chief of staff Kevin J. O’Connor, the United States attorney in Connecticut. Mr. O’Connor, 39, will at least temporarily hold both jobs. His selection appeared to be an effort by Mr. Gonzales to solidify his standing among prosecutors who have been restive in the aftermath of the dismissals.

Justice Department officials said the new subpoena issued by the House Judiciary Committee was “unfortunate” and sought documents, already the subject of a separate request by the Senate, for information about United States attorneys who are still on the job. Brian Roehrkasse, a department spokesman, said many of the documents, in unedited form, had already been reviewed at the department by Congressional staff members.

As the public efforts by House Democrats to obtain more documents intensified in advance of Mr. Gonzales’s testimony, Congressional investigators also worked behind the scenes, preparing for interviews with other Justice Department officials, including William Mercer, the acting associate attorney general, and Michael A. Battle, formerly the director of the agency’s liaison office for United States attorneys. The interviews, to be held Wednesday and Thursday, would not be conducted under oath, but a transcript would be kept, Congressional officials said.

In a separate development, Senate Democrats asked Mr. Gonzales to turn over documents related to a prosecution of a state contracting official in Wisconsin. In a case involving corruption charges brought by Steven Biskupic, the United States attorney in Milwaukee, the official, Georgia Thompson, was convicted.

But last week, after an appeals court heard oral arguments, a federal appeals court took the unusual step of ordering Ms. Thompson’s immediate release from prison. The senators sought all documents at the Justice Department in connection with the case, which was the subject of intense political advertising last fall against Gov. James E. Doyle, a Democrat.

Mr. O’Connor, the new chief of staff to Mr. Gonzales, grew up in West Hartford, Conn., and graduated from the University of Notre Dame and the University of Connecticut School of Law. After a yearlong clerkship for Judge William H. Timbers of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and time in private practice, he worked for the Securities and Exchange Commission from 1995 to 1997.

Mr. O’Connor, who ran unsuccessfully as a Republican candidate for the House in 1998, was confirmed as a United States attorney in 2002. His office has pursued successful investigations against predators of children, corporate polluters and corrupt public officials, including the inquiry that ultimately forced out Gov. John G. Rowland, a Republican.

Mr. O’Connor recused himself from the Rowland case, citing ties he had to the former governor as well as ties his wife, Kathleen, had stemming from the time she served as a deputy counsel in Mr. Rowland’s office, and other reasons.

Allison Cowan contributed reporting from Stamford, Conn.

House Subpoenas More U.S. Attorney Files, NYT, 11.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/11/washington/11attorneys.html