Replies

Well, the Speaker of the House, the Majority leader, and the Majority Whip, and the friggin CHAIRMAN OF THE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE, who not only authored the House Version, but floor managed the Senate version, and Congressman Weldon obviously disagree with you goign so far as to submitting a brief to the effect, but Hey they only wrote and passed the bill, so you must know more about it than they do. Amd you can add Santorum to the list that said outright that Whittemore expressly violated the Law.

Going further, their point is in considering the bill, it is fairly common sensical that in order to hold a hearing for someone, that someone needs to be alive, and the paradigm of textual analysis of the law, mandates a consideration of the Intent, as well as the Legislative History of said law.

Again, they originally had language in the bill mandating temporary injunctive relief. This was then changed to allowing for temporary injunctive relief. When that paragraph was stripped from the bill, the result was that existing law governing temporary injunctive relief applied. Frist confirmed this in his comments on the Senate floor.

The bloviating of all the congressmen you care to cite does not change this. The Terri bill did NOT change existing law on temporary injunctive relief. These cowardly congressmen are blaming the judiciary for their own flawed bill. Had they REALLY wanted to mandate temporary injunctive relief, they would have left that language in the bill. Instead, they get credit for "doing something" by passing a bill, and avoid responsibility for its failure by blaming the judiciary for following the law. They can talk about "intent" all they want, but the language of the bill did not require a temporary injunction. The judge ruled based upon the language of the bill and existing law on temporary injunctions.