Why did Senate Democrats sheepishly support the Schiavo Relief Bill on Palm Sunday? No courage, no conviction, and no polling data, as Joyce Purnick of the Times and Richard Cohen of the WaPo suggested?
Well, the NY Times has finally re-discovered Sen. Tom Harkin, a champion of rights for the disabled. He appeared last Monday, when the Times told us this:
Senate Democrats were helpful as well. Some were reticent about opposing the Schiavo measure because of the highly charged emotions surrounding it. But Senator Tom Harkin, the Iowa Democrat who is an author of the Americans With Disabilities Act, pressed hard for the measure and helped to assuage the states' rights concerns of other Democrats, and the Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, ultimately supported the bill as well.
Sen. Harkin then reappeared in the Boston Globe, but a search of the Times site shows he dropped out of the story (other than a modest reader revolt in the letters) until today:
On Sunday, lawmakers of both parties agreed that Congress has a role to play in such cases and should contemplate legislation that would give added legal recourse to patients like Ms. Schiavo. While it is difficult to predict whether such a measure could pass, the Schiavo case has clearly pushed thorny questions about end-of-life care to the fore on Capitol Hill, as well as in state legislatures around the nation.
The Republican-controlled House already passed a bill that would allow the federal courts to review cases like Ms. Schiavo's, in which the patient has left no written instructions, the family is at odds and state courts have ordered a feeding tube to be withdrawn. That bill evolved into one that was narrowly tailored to Ms. Schiavo.
Now some Democrats, prodded by advocates for the disabled, say Congress should consider whether such a law is needed.
"I think we should look into this and very possibly legislate it," said Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, who opposed Congressional action in the Schiavo case. Mr. Frank was speaking on Sunday on the ABC News program "This Week With George Stephanopoulos." Mr. Frank added: "I think Congress needs to do more. Because I've spoken with a lot of disability groups who are concerned that, even where a choice is made to terminate life, it might be coerced by circumstances."
In the Senate, Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, has also been consulting with advocates for disability rights and is preparing to introduce legislation along the lines of the bill that the House passed, a spokeswoman said. Senator Harkin, an author of the Americans With Disabilities Act, was one of the few Democrats in the Senate who spoke in favor of the so-called private relief measure that allowed a federal court to review Ms. Schiavo's case.
Perhaps we will have some fun watching the "All Change" sign go up on the left, as they explain why Harkin's bill is desperately right, but the version already rejected by the Senate was desperately wrong.
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