The photos were taken at Woodside Hospice yesterday
Gov. Bush leads unprecedented lobbying effort
Behind the scenes, Gov. Jeb Bush and Sen. Mel Martinez enlisted conservatives' help to create a formidable lobbying force to keep Terri Schiavo alive.
BY FRANK DAVIES, ERIKA BOLSTAD AND MARC CAPUTO
ebolstad@herald.com
Council lobbyist
Less than 24 hours before Terri Schiavo had her feeding tube removed, Gov. Jeb Bush knew the effort to keep her alive was slipping away.
So the brother of the president -- and a prime mover of the 2003 legislation that prolonged Schiavo's life -- called Florida's newest U.S. senator, Mel Martinez, with an urgent plea.
''I'm not sure we can get it done here in Florida,'' Martinez quoted Bush as saying just after a new Schiavo measure stalled in the Florida Legislature. ``Do whatever you can federally.''
What transpired over the ensuing hours was a testament to the influence of the governor and religious conservatives, and will be remembered as one of the most extraordinary moves in the halls of U.S. Congress ever seen on behalf of a single person who, until recently, was little-known to many in the country.
Meeting in the dark of night, the C-SPAN cameras off, leaders in the House and Senate hit upon the idea to stall the court-ordered removal of her feeding tube by issuing congressional subpoenas to Schiavo herself, her husband and some of her doctors and caretakers.
GOP DISAPPOINTED
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert said Friday evening that they were disappointed with Friday's court decisions allowing the feeding tube to be removed, and they vowed to work through the weekend to prolong Schiavo's life.
The dizzying flurry of congressional activity is largely a response to a relentless push by conservative Christian groups -- using e-mail ''action alerts'' and persistent lobbying -- and the personal involvement of Frist and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas.
''I've never seen anything like this in Congress over an individual case,'' said Jayd Henricks, lobbyist for the Family Research Council, one of the groups battling to keep Schiavo alive by challenging state court orders.
Even as Congress struggled with the federal budget, Medicaid and other national issues, Republican leaders worked well into early morning Friday to intervene on behalf of the brain-damaged woman in a Florida hospice.
They passed bills, issued subpoenas, interrupted a debate on the annual budget, scheduled hearings and held press conferences, all designed to prevent the court-ordered removal of a feeding tube from Schiavo, who has been in a vegetative state for 15 years.
The unusual effort culminated early Friday. The House and Senate had passed different bills to give Schiavo rights in federal court, but most House members had left the capital before the differences could be reconciled.
Top GOP leaders scrambled ''quickly and creatively'' to find a way to block the removal of the tube from Schiavo without legislation, Henricks said.
A Senate staffer said ''the leaders and lawyers were looking at everything, trying to freeze the situation in place and buy time'' so legislation could be crafted and sent to President Bush in the next few days. What they devised -- the subpoena -- has generated new controversy about how Congress operates in a controversial case such as Schiavo's.
Schiavo's plight began dominating Congress at 2:59 p.m. Thursday, when the Florida Senate voted 21-16 to defeat an amendment designed to give Schiavo's parents another chance to delay the removal of the tube.
The previous night, The House had passed a broad bill that would make sweeping changes in federal law, giving federal courts jurisdiction in any case involving incapacitated people who have not given advanced instructions about whether they should be offered sustenance.
HOPE DWINDLES
But the Senate balked at the broader House bill, instead favoring a so-called ''private relief bill'' that would have applied exclusively to Schiavo and would have not have altered federal law in other cases.
Several senators objected to the House bill, which the Senate refused to take up, and passed their own narrowly focused bill Thursday afternoon.
The refusal to take up the Republican bill angered House GOP leaders: With differing bills, there was nothing for President Bush to sign to prolong Schiavo's life. The House and Senate convened a short time later.
Speaker Hastert and DeLay remained talking on the House floor.
''I did see the speaker and the House majority leader anguished, looking for ways for us to help,'' said U.S. Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart, a Miami Republican.
They cooked up a deal: The House Government Reform Committee, which had just held 11 hours of hearings on the issue of steroids in baseball, would launch an inquiry into the case and issue subpoenas to doctors and hospice administrators to stop them from disconnecting Schiavo's tube. ''This inquiry should give hope to Terri, her parents and friends and the million of people praying for her,'' Hastert said. ``This fight is not over.''
Committee members from both parties said they were not aware of the subpoenas until they were notified Friday morning.
''This all happened so fast, even the committee staff did not know,'' said Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite, R-Fla. "This has just been thrown at the entire committee and Congress.''
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/11176614.htm
The photos were taken at Woodside Hospice yesterday
MICHAEL SCHIAVO BEGAN WORK AT THE PINELLAS COUNTY JAIL AS A NURSE ON OCTOBER 11, 2004
Weeks before he left the Sheriff's Office, [Sheriff] Rice said, he hired Michael Schiavo for a job as a nurse in the county jail, near Largo. He began work Oct. 11.
"I hired him," Rice said, "but I never saw him. I don't know him. It's hard to find good nurses, and he was right at the top of the stack of applications."
While Rice hired Schiavo, he said, he is sure he acted on the recommendation of one of his assistants.
Rice said he and Judge Greer are friends, and he acknowledged making a TV ad and was on the hospice board several years ago, as an honorary member because he was sheriff.
Rice was one of eight Republicans in the state House who voted against a bill that would have prevented the withholding of food and water to incapacitated patients who did not make their intentions clear beforehand.
"I tried to vote my conscience and not necessarily do what's popular," Rice said. "I wasn't counting votes. I think the Republicans might have misread this thing."
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/03/19/Tampabay/Schiavo_Web_rumor_peg.shtml
Terri is a federal witness.
President Bush, use the US Marshals to protect her! It's their duty!