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Partial transcript of Tom Delay’s Capitol Hill News Conference where he admits Judge Greer still has jurisdiction over Terri and that they did not demand the tube be reinserted.

During question and answer part:

Female Reporter: So on Monday you expect a federal judge to get this case to automatically reinsert the tube?

Delay: I do. By normal procedure I am told by the lawyers at hand that… that was one of the problems with the senate bill. When you affirmatively give the judge the discretion not to put the tube in, they won’t. Under normal circumstances, regular order, regular process, it’s almost automatic that the tube will have to go back in so he can consider this matter. This isn’t a matter of subpoenas or anything else, this is giving the… the… uhh… uhh… Schindlers the opportunity to get into the federal court and have the federal judge look at this uhh… uhh…based upon uhm… the merits of the case, and that will take awhile and obviously uhh…the judge will have to put the feeding tube back in, or she could die before the case could be heard.

Female Reporter: And this will only relate to her? No other…

Delay: This will only relate to Terri Schiavo, which was a very deep concern with a lot of people in… not a lot, but a few people in the house and the senate and we took care of that concern.

Male Reporter: Mr. Leader, you just mentioned one of ???? the subpoena ??? couldn’t point out the way this was described as a compromise, ways in which this m??? toward the senate version and ways you ??believe?? elements of your bill, which yesterday you spoke very passionately about ??its?? being the ??most?? secure ???? senate version.

Delay: Well, one of… first of all, I was passionate about our house bill because this fixed it for the nation, and the house bill fixed the… uhh… allowed this process to work for anybody that finds themselves in Terri Schiavo’s position. That concerned many and they didn’t want to set a precedent and certainly wanted to deliberate that issue over time, and that’s a reasonable approach. Umm.. I am still concerned and I have given in umm to the senate because this bill still keeps the case uhh in Judge Greer’s court in Florida. So umm I thought we should amend the removal statutes so that a federal court, if it so decides, could remove this case from umm the state court. That is not the case, it still stays in that court. That could lead to confusion and conflict uhh which will do no… little more than run up attorney’s fees, but uhh people insisted on that and we ?????. We wanted two things, and this bill addresses them. One, continue to feed and hydrate Terri Schiavo. Uhhh Two, give her the opportunity to get into federal court. This bill accomplishes that. That’s why I think everybody’s agreeing on it. Umm and the only other technical compromise was the senate bill, in my opinion was flawed in the respect of giving the judge discretion on putting that tube back. And so we just are silent on that issue, is how we compromised, we took that language out of the senate bill and are silent on it, relying on the regular order and regular processes that federal judges follow..