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Wednesday, March 1, 1995 Page 2
Republicans delay
balanced-budget vote
WASHINGTON — In an at
mosphere of excruciating tension,
Senate Republicans took an over
night delay Tuesday for a vote on
the balanced-budget amendment
to the Constitution. With Demo
cratic Sen. Kent Conrad of North
Dakota at the center of negotia
tions, Senate Majority Leader Bob
Dole sought the delay until
Wednesday morning. He ac
knowledged the amendment could
fail to win the necessary two
thirds majority needed to send it
to the states.
“This is a sad spectacle,” said
the principle foe of the amend
ment, Democrat Robert C. Byrd
of West Virginia. “This has every
appearance of a sleazy tawdry
effort to win a victory at the cost
of amending the Constitution.”
The centerpiece of the Repub
lican revolution in Congress, the
proposed amendment to the Con
stitution is designed to end the
run-up in federal debt that ex
ceeds $4.8 trillion. It calls for a
balanced budget by 2002 and re
quires a three-fifths vote of both
houses to run a deficit in future
years. A similar measure cleared
the GOP-controlled House in
January. Senate passage would
mean the House would have to
vote on the newly modified ver
sion before submitting it to the
states for ratification.
At the White House, President
Clinton renewed his objections.
Pressed on whether Clinton would
campaign to defeat ratification in
the states, press secretary Mike
McCurry said the president would
make sure state legislators “have
the information they need to j udge
the merits.”
Beyond its politically potent
symbolic value — polls show 70
percent public support — Repub
licans said the measure would
enforce discipline. “If we don’t
pass this amendment, we don’t
balance the budget,” said GOP
Whip Trent Lott of Mississippi.
“This is it.”
Democratic foes said it would
lead to devastating spending cuts
in social programs, permit Social
Security trust-fund money to be
used for deficit reduction and
cripple efforts to soften the im
pact of future recessions.
Democrat Sen. Dale Bumpers
of Arkansas said in a rising voice,
“I pity an unsuspecting nation if
we vote yes.”
As if to remind opponents of
the potential consequences, the
11 newly elected GOP senators
whose victories created a new
Republican majority sat together
on the Senate floor. Said Rick
Santorum of Pennsylvania, at 36
the youngest among them, “The
people who will stand in the way
of this balanced-budget amend
ment today will not be around
long to stand in the way the next
time.”
In a series of votes leading to a
final roll call, Republicans turned
aside numerous proposed Demo
cratic changes. One, by Sen. Ed
ward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.,
would have banned a president
from impounding funds to enforce
the amendment.
Privately, some Democrats
worried the measure would fail
by a single vote, exposing all sena
tors to a campaign charge that
they were responsible for the
death of the politically popular
provision.
Still, Republicans had their
own holdout, five-term Mark
Hatfield of Oregon. He cited “en
during protections of the Consti
tution” in reaffirming his opposi
tion.
Series of abortion clinic fires
in California maybe connected
SAN FRANCISCO — An arson
ist scorched an abortion clinic Tues
day in the fifth such attack in Cali
fornia in less than three weeks. Fed
eral investigators say the blazes may
be linked.
The FBI was trying to determine
if Tuesday’s blaze was part of a
national conspiracy against abor
tion providers, spokesman Rick
Smith in San Francisco said.
The string of arson fires has
moved northward along the coast,
hitting clinics in Ventura, Santa
Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Santa
Cruz and now San Francisco. No
one has been injured.
The first two attacks involved
flammable liquids placed in auto
mobile tires, and were almost defi
nitely linked, said Larry Comelison
of the Alcohol, Tobacco and Fire
arms bureau in Los Angeles.
That method was also used in the
latest fire, Fire Department arson
investigator A1 Silvestri said.
The target was the Pregnancy
Consultation Center, which offers
abortions and other reproductive
health services.
Mayor Frank Jordan, who called
his city “an island of sanity” in the
abortion battle, said that city would
. ••••• .. •. <ivwKw:*;w- I
_ APWm J. Castello
not allow interference with a
woman’s right to an abortion.
“There’s no room for violence of
this nature in San'Francisco,” he
said. J‘This sinister act of cowardice
must be condemned in the strongest
terms possible.”
investigators said someone en
tered a basement through window
well and set the fire in a janitor’s
office around dawn. It did about
$600 worth of damage. The clinic
was able to open for business.
Clark says OJ defense coached witness
LOS ANGELES — An investi
gator “handed a script” to a key O.J.
Simpson witness and “coached” her
through an interview, an incensed
prosecutor contended Tuesday after
listening to a tape-recording belat
edly handed over by the defense.
Deputy District Attorney Marcia
Clark also said the interview, taped
July 29, was inconsistent with a sec
ond statement Rosa Lopez gave the
defense Aug. 18.
“I have never heard anything like
it,” Clark said after listening to the
interview in Superior Court Judge
Lance Ito’s chambers. “I have never
heard a witness basically coached
and told what to say through every
bend and tdm.”
The 15- to 20-minute interview
of Lopez, a maid for Simpson’s next
door neighbors, was conducted by
defense investigator William
Pavelic. In it, according to Clark,
Lopez never mentions seeing
Simpson’s white Bronco parked in
the street outside his estate shortly
after 10 p.m.
She did say in the interview, how
ever, that she had seen the Bronco
earlier that night.
The dispute over the interview
delayed resumption of Lopez’s vid
eotaped testimony, which began
Monday after two days of fighting
about when and how her testimony
should be taken. r
Lopez has threatened to flee to
her native El Salvador because re
porters were hounding her but agreed
to stay briefly to testify. Her testi
mony is being videotaped, over de
fense protestations, so it doesn’t in
terrupt presentation of the prosecu
tion case. It will be up to the defense
whether to show the videotape to
jurors later in the trial. L
I News... _
in a Minute
Foster nomination sent to Senate
WASHINGTON — A month after President Clinton chose Henry
Foster to serve as surgeon general, the White House formally
forwarded the doctor’s nomination to an uncertain future in the
Senate on Tuesday.
After drawing strong reviews initially, Foster’s selection at
tracted intense opposition from anti-abortion groups and conserva
tives when he acknowledged performing a limited number of abor
tions as an obstetrician-gynecologist. Foster also has been criticized
for giving varying answers about the number of abortions he per
formed.
In addition, a conservative group has claimed he was aware of a
government study from the 1930s to the 1970s in which black men
with syphilis were left untreated. Foster says he did not learn of the
study until 1972, when he worked to ensure the men received proper
treatment.
The White House maintains Foster’s critics are anti-abortion
extremists from the right wing of the Republican Party.
While senators from both parties say Foster faces difficulty in the
Senate, the White House has insisted it will not pull back the
nomination.
Rain on Mardi Gras parade
NEW ORLEANS — Skimpy feathered and beaded costumes gave
way to plastic ponchos and slickers as New Orleans’ Mardi Gras
celebration turned into a huge, sloppy party in the rain
Intermittent, driving rain flooded streets, drenched floats and
parade-goers and pushed hard-drinking Bourbon Street revelers
indoors or under awnings and balconies.
“The only bad thing is it waters down my beer,” said Ron
Edmund, 38, of Chicago.
Hotel and bar employees in the French Quarter shoveled plastic
cups and other debris from clogged drains to help empty shin-deep
water from the narrow streets.
An estimated 300,000 tourists were in town. The rain appeared to
have kept the crowds well below the projected 1.2 million.
Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, falls on the day before Ash Wednes
day and the start of 40 days of Lenten sobriety in this heavily Roman
Catholic city. It wraps up 11 days of bawdy Carnival parties and
parades.
Tuesday’s storms came after a beautiful weekend of mostly dry,
mild and sunny weather.
Republicans revise
welfare reform bill
WASHINGTON — In a con
cession to GOP moderates and
governors, House Republicans on
Tuesday stripped their welfare
reform legislation of a lifetime
ban on cash assistance to unmar
ried teen-age mothers.
Republicans also rewrote their
overhaul of the welfare system to
push far more recipients into a
work program than first planned.
But Democrats said the changes
were merely “illusory” and could
easily be circumvented by the
states.
The revisions come as the
House Ways and Means Commit
tee takes up the bill, which would
reverse New Deal social policies
and end the automatic guarantee
to cash welfare for poor single
mothers and children.
The bill collapses several cash
welfare and foster care programs
into two block grants, caps spend
ing and cuts off cash benefits to
families after five years.
It also ends cash payments to
hundreds of thousands of disabled
children and kicks most legal
immigrants off welfare. A new
provision, announced Tuesday,
prohibits publicly funded adop
tion agencies from discriminat
ing against prospective parents
whose race, religion or national
origin does not match the child’s.
GOP leaders had been under
pressure from moderates and gov
ernors to back off their campaign
promises to deny cash assistance
to any single woman who gives
birth to a child before her 18th
birthday. The children would have
been banned from welfare until
adulthood.
The compromise announced
Tuesday would bar these moth
ers, and their children, from re
ceiving cash welfare until the
mother turns 18, although they
would still be allowed to collect
food stamps and Medicaid.
The original ban was backed
by conservatives who believe
welfare subsidizes and encour
ages the rising rate of out-of-wed
lock births.
NdSkan
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