Column/Legend
1 - Prefix  - L-Life,  H-Homosexual Behavior/Perversion, R-Religion/Legal Persecution/ACLU, E-Education, M-Media Bias, O-Other
2-7 - Yr, Mo, Dy
8 - L -Letter to Editor, C-Commentary, O-Op-Ed, M-Metro

Hotlink Index of this weeks's family values related news:  [Life]   [Homosexual Behavior/Perversion]   [Religion/Religious Persecution]   [Education]   [Media]   [Other]

LIFE
L050523L     Stem-cell controversies
L050524       Cloning war
L050524       Dueling stem-cell bills face vote in the House
L050524       High court will review repeal of abortion law
L050524E     Stem-cell research and today's vote
L050525       House OKs bill on stem cells
L050525C     Moral 'home base' needed
L050526       Senators ask Bush to OK stem-cell bill
L050527       Spoiling the drama
L050528       Romney vetoes stem-cell bill
L050528L     Stem Cell Research

HOMOSEXUAL BEHAVIOR/PERVERSION
H050522       Texas gay 'marriage' ban heads to voters
H050523       Good wishes
H050523       Psychiatric members urgegay 'marriage' recognition
H050524       Spokane mayor won't quit in gay Web scandal
H050526Md  Ehrlich praised for veto of gay rights
H050528       Mayor faces trial for gay 'marriage'

RELIGION/RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
R050522       Bush praises faith-based activism
R050522       Judge's past belies present criticisms
R050522C    Filibuster repair
R050522E    Senate majorities and judicial nominees
R050522L    Judical nominations
R050523      Democrats flip-flop on filibusters
R050523      Long memories
R050523      NEW JERSEY   School bans religious song
R050523      Sen. Allen predicts showdown will end in 'nuclear option'
R050524      7 Republicans abandon GOP on filibuster
R050524E    Battle over Supreme Court nominees looms
R050524E    Senate traditions evolving
R050525      Democrats count victory in pact on judicial picks
R050525      GOP senator faults Bush in filibuster deal
R050525      Owen proceeds toward an OK; anger grows
R050525      Priscilla Owen confirmed
R050525E    55 minus 7 = GOP defeat
R050525E    A Senate Regency
R050526      'Cynical' deal
R050526      Bush makes most of Senate deal
R050526      Senate confirms Owen to federal appeals bench
R050526C   Compromise or cop-out?
R050527     The 14 saints
R050527     WEST VIRGINIA   Church seeks ouster of gay-friendly pastor
R050527C   Minority rule . . .
R050527C  . . . and ruin
R050527C   A battle delayed
R050527E   Defending the Constitution
R050527E   Frist: Hold to principle
R050527L   Debating the filibuster debate
R050527Va Falwell foe fights to keep Web site
R050528C   One-sided deal
R050528E    Gauging the nuclear fallout

EDUCATION
E050523        A new generation of moral leadership
E050524Md  County schools ditch sex-ed class
E050527Md  Sex-ed opponents part of movement to reclaim schools
E050528C     'Educational' smut
E050528Md  PG schools chief resigns

MEDIA
M050523C   Misleading filibuster myths
M050523C   Seminar in bias
M050524      Moyers unplugged
M050527      Hammering DeLay
M050527     ‘No credible evidence' on Koran story
M050528C   High noon for high news

OTHER
O050522Md Support grows for Steele Senate race
O050523      FLORIDA   Missing girl found buried alive
O050524      Medicaid lets sex offenders get Viagra
O050525      Teen pregnancy dips by a third since '90
O050526      Hillary aide denies hiding funds
O050527      Coburn revives show on STD for Hill aides
O050528      5 abstinence programs receive favorable reviews
O050528Md Young girls groped on bus

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H050522   Texas gay 'marriage' ban heads to voters
    AUSTIN, Texas -- The Texas Senate approved a proposed constitutional ban on same-sex "marriage" with a 21-8 vote yesterday, sending the issue to voters. Last month, the House narrowly passed the proposal, which would define marriage as between one man and one woman.
    State law already prohibits same-sex "marriages." If approved in a statewide vote in November, Texas would join 14 states that statutorily and constitutionally ban the unions.
    Massachusetts is the only state that allows such "marriages," although Vermont and Connecticut have approved same-sex civil unions.
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R050522   Bush praises faith-based activism
 

By Joseph Curl
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- President Bush yesterday delivered a commencement address at the Christian-focused Calvin College, telling more than 800 graduating seniors that faith-based community activists have been "at the front of every great movement in American history."
    "All these organizations promote the spirit of community and help us acquire the 'habits of heart' that are so vital to a free society," the president said. "Our faith-based and community groups provide the armies of compassion that help people who wonder if the American Dream is meant for them. These armies of compassion are the great engines of social change."
    Mr. Bush, wearing a blue robe with black bands on the arms, urged the young graduates of the Calvinist college to get involved.
    "We'll do our part, but, ultimately, service is up to you," he said. "It is your choice to make. As your generation takes its place in the world, all of you must make this decision: Will you be a spectator or a citizen? To make a difference in this world, you must be involved. By serving a higher calling here or abroad, you'll make your lives richer and build a more hopeful future for our world."
    The president's visit to the liberal arts college became controversial when a third of the college's faculty signed a letter published yesterday in the Grand Rapids Press that said: "As Christians, we are called to be peacemakers and to initiate war only as a last resort. We believe your administration has launched an unjust and unjustified war in Iraq."
    Another letter signed by about 800 students, faculty and alumni ran Friday. It said: "In our view, the policies and actions of your administration, both domestically and internationally over the past four years, violate many deeply held principles of Calvin College."
    Only a handful of students showed up to protest the president's address at the 4,000-student school. The students had also planned to wear armbands -- yellow for peace, green for the environment and pink for tolerance -- but, in a survey of the 875 graduates as they accepted their diplomas, just a few sported the bands.
    The president delivered a 15-minute address urging students to perform public service and continue to work within the framework of faith. He was not heckled during his brief speech but instead drew sustained applause when he took the stage.
    The few protesters who stood on a road before the president arrived -- one holding a sign that said: "No One Died When Clinton Lied" -- left minutes after Mr. Bush's motorcade passed by, but about one in five of the graduating students wore large buttons that said: "God Is Not a Democrat or a Republican."
    That sentiment dovetailed with Mr. Bush's comment that it is a "great responsibility to serve and love others, a responsibility that goes back to the greatest commandment."
    "This isn't a Democratic idea. This isn't a Republican idea. This is an American idea," he said to applause.
    Mr. Bush poked fun at himself about his verbal gaffes.
    "Some day you will appreciate the grammar and verbal skills you learned here," he said to laughter. "If any of you wonder how far a mastery of the English language can take you, just look what it did for me."
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R050522   Judge's past belies present criticisms
 

By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Democrats have attacked California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown — the second filibustered judicial nominee being debated in the Senate — for several of her court rulings but also for speeches in which she criticized big government and defended religion.
    President Bush nominated Justice Brown to the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, nearly two years ago and the criticisms of her today mirror those leveled against her during her October 2003 confirmation hearing. But even her harshest critics do not deny that Justice Brown's accomplishments have been significant.
    Born to sharecroppers in Greenville, Ala., under oppressive Jim Crow laws, Justice Brown told senators that her family's motto growing up was: "Don't snivel." As a single mother, she worked her way through law school and — after holding a variety of legal positions in California — was appointed to the state's highest court.
    In 1998, the last time her name appeared on the California ballot, she won 76 percent of the vote — higher than any other justice whose name was on the ballot that year.
    Senate Democrats charge that Justice Brown is so conservative that she is too far outside the mainstream to serve on the second-highest court in the land. Several have accused Justice Brown, who is black, of being against civil rights and in favor of returning the country to a century dominated by the slavery of blacks.
    "Janice Rogers Brown's record shows a deep hostility to civil rights, to workers' rights, to consumer protection, to a wide variety of government actions, the very issues that dominate the D.C. court," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, said on the floor last week.
    Minority Leader Harry Reid said, "She wants to take American back to the 19th century and undo the New Deal, which includes Social Security and vital protections for working Americans — like the minimum wage."
    Mr. Reid's assertion, which Justice Brown has said is flatly untrue, is based on a speech in which she said the New Deal marked "the triumph of our own socialist revolution."
    During her October 2003 hearing, Justice Brown said most of her speeches were delivered to younger audiences such as law students in academic environments. "In making a speech to that kind of audience, I'm really trying to stir the pot a little bit, to get people to think, to challenge them a little bit and so that's what that speech is designed to do," she said. "But I do recognize the difference in the role between speaking and being a judge."
    An area of possibly even greater alarm for Democrats is Justice Brown's suspicion of enlarged government, which supporters say is understandable for someone who grew up under government-sanctioned racism.
    "I'm very concerned about your statements that you've made in your speeches which are highly critical of the role of government," Mr. Kennedy said during her confirmation hearing, noting that the D.C. Circuit hears many cases dealing with the federal government. "These issues have real implications for real people, and they are government actions that are out there to protect people."
    "I don't hate government," she replied. "I am part of government. What I am talking about there is really where the government takes over the roles that we used to do as neighbors and as communities and as churches. I think it's important for us to preserve civil society, but I am not saying there is no role for government."
    Mr. Kennedy also expressed concern about a case Justice Brown handled involving racial slurs in the workplace and scolded her for not being more concerned about such behavior. Justice Brown wrote that the First Amendment guarantees free speech and prohibits the federal government from ordering a supervisor not to use racial slurs.
    "How does that possibly advance the cause of justice and fulfill what we were trying to do to deal with this kind of verbal harassment in the civil rights laws?" Mr. Kennedy asked.
    "Well, Senator," Justice Brown replied, "Let me say that I absolutely agree with you that no one should be subjected to this kind of harassment, to verbal slurs. ... All that I was saying in that case is that the damages remedy is a deterrent. I think that damages in this particular case would be totally effective because you're dealing with this corporation that is not going to want to go through this continually."
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O050523   FLORIDA   Missing girl found buried alive
    LAKE WORTH -- An 8-year-old girl who had been sexually assaulted and buried under rocks in a trash bin was found alive yesterday by an officer searching a landfill, authorities said. A teenager was charged with attempted murder.
    The girl had non-life-threatening injuries and was taken to a hospital, they said. Her condition was not immediately known.
    Milagro Cunningham, 17, who had been staying at the house of the girl's godmother, was charged with attempted murder, sexual battery on a child younger than 12, and false imprisonment of a victim younger than 13 years old, police said.
    The girl was found about seven hours after she was reported missing, but authorities were still trying to determine how long she had been inside the trash bin. An Amber Alert had been issued early yesterday.
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R050523   NEW JERSEY   School bans religious song
    NEWARK -- A public school prohibited a second-grader from singing a religious song at a talent show, prompting a lawsuit Friday claiming violation of the girl's constitutional rights.
    A federal judge declined an emergency request to compel Frenchtown Elementary School to allow 8-year-old Olivia Turton to sing "Awesome God" at the Friday night show, but allowed the lawsuit to go forward.
    The decision by U.S. District Judge Stanley R. Chesler in Trenton to consider the case came just hours before Olivia had hoped to sing the pop song by the late Rich Mullins.
    The girl was told May 10 that she could not sing the song. Her mother, Maryann Turton, protested at a school board meeting that night. She was told three days later by Joyce Brennan, the school superintendent and principal, that the religious content made it inappropriate at school, according to the lawsuit filed by the child's parents Friday morning.
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R050523   Long memories
    "Surveying the Senate's nuclear-missile silos, Court TV's Fred Graham said that of course the Republican majority had the power to change the filibuster rule, and the Democrats would have to lump it: 'What are they going to do,' he asked, 'appeal to the Supreme Court?' They didn't much enjoy their last visit to the high court after the 2000 election. But the nightmare lingers on," the Wall Street Journal's Daniel Henninger writes.
    "The death-struggle in the Senate over the Bush judges is best understood as a re-fighting of the post-2000 Florida election challenge. Democratic logic, premised on the ... Bush v. Gore decision, runs like this: Bush stole the 2000 election with a Republican-dominated Supreme Court. The resulting presidency, as they've often said, is 'illegitimate.' Because 'justice' failed in 2000, Karl Rove got four years to brilliantly manufacture a bare, popular-vote majority of social conservatives in 2004, extending the illegitimate Bush presidency another four years. Ergo, obstruction is justified.
    "Judicial nominations, the Bolton nomination, Social Security reform -- Just Say No. But will the voters buy it?" Mr. Henninger asks.
    "I think the Democrats have as much chance of winning the public with obstruction politics as they did of winning the past two presidential elections: close but not close enough.
    "If the nation's most popular sport now is poker, then the Democrats have become the party of the constant inside straight. They hold a politically competitive hand, but not a winning hand."
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H050523   Good wishes
    "May 17 was a milestone: The one-year anniversary of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts. The media marked the occasion by spotlighting some of the 6,000 gay and lesbian couples who got married here during the past 12 months, and if there was a common theme that ran through all the interviews and profiles, it was the joy of the newlyweds," the Boston Globe's Jeff Jacoby writes.
    "Hundreds of same-sex couples converged on Boston Common to celebrate the anniversary on Tuesday, and in the large group photo that appeared in the Boston Globe the next morning, virtually every face is wreathed in smiles. If I were a supporter of same-sex marriage, I would congratulate the delighted couples on their anniversary and wish them continued happiness," Mr. Jacoby said.
    "But I am an opponent of same-sex marriage. That being the case, my message to the couples is: Congratulations on your anniversary, and may you enjoy continued happiness.
    "I mention my sincere good wishes only because so many supporters of same-sex marriage think that anyone who disagrees with them must be an ignorant bigot. Time and again, I have been told that my views on marriage are morally equivalent to the views of a segregationist on race, or a Nazi on Jews. It is remarkable: Express the conviction that marriage should mean the union of male and female, and you are told that you are peddling hate."
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H050523   Psychiatric members urgegay 'marriage' recognition

ATLANTA (AP) -- Representatives of the nation's top psychiatric group approved a statement yesterday urging legal recognition of homosexual "marriage."
    If approved by the association's directors in July, the measure would make the American Psychiatric Association the first major medical group to take such a stance.
    The statement supports changing the traditional understanding of marriage as the union of a man and a woman "in the interest of maintaining and promoting mental health."
    It follows a similar measure by the American Psychological Association last year, little more than three decades after that group removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders.
    The psychiatric association's statement, approved by voice vote on the first day of its weeklong annual meeting in Atlanta, cites the "positive influence of a stable, adult partnership on the health of all family members."
    The resolution recognizes "that gay men and lesbians are full human beings who should be afforded the same human and civil rights," said Margery Sved, a Raleigh, N.C., psychiatrist and member of the assembly's committee on homosexual issues.
    The document says the association is addressing the definition of civil marriage, not religious marriage. It says it takes no position on any religion's understanding of marriage.
    Massachusetts is the only state that performs homosexual "marriages." Eighteen states have passed constitutional amendments defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Some of them also take other steps against state recognition of homosexual unions.
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R050523   Democrats flip-flop on filibusters
 

By Donald Lambro
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Senate Democrats who oppose Republican attempts to forbid the use of the filibuster to kill judicial nominations were calling for its elimination not that many years ago.
    Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts has condemned Majority Leader Bill Frist's plan to end the unlimited debate tactic that Democrats have employed to prevent many of President Bush's court appointments from getting a vote.
    Mr. Kennedy last week defended the use of the filibuster to block Mr. Bush's nominees, telling CBS' ?Face the Nation? that ?you're talking about an institution, established by the Founding Fathers, whose rules have guided us? for more than 200 years.
    But Mr. Kennedy had a different view in the late 1990s when he and 18 other Democrats sought to abolish the filibuster.
    The rules-change proposal at that time, offered by Sens. Tom Harkin of Iowa and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, would have amended the Senate rules to allow a simple majority to end any filibuster against a bill or a presidential nomination.
    Taking the same position now being expressed by Mr. Frist, Mr. Kennedy said on the Senate floor on Feb. 3, 1998: ?We owe it to Americans across the country to give these nominees a vote. If our Republican colleagues don't like them, vote against them. But give them a vote.?
    As early as 2000, Mr. Kennedy continued to vigorously voice his objection to the filibuster rule to block nominations, saying, ?After the necessary time for inquiry, [the Senate] should vote him up or vote him down.?
    Sen. Robert C. Byrd, West Virginia Democrat and a master practitioner of the Senate rules, also has threatened to change the Senate's rules by a simple majority vote, just as Mr. Frist is moving to do now.
    In 1979, when the Democrats were in charge and Mr. Byrd was majority leader, he prevented a looming filibuster by threatening to force a rules change if opponents did not agree to a vote.
    He argued at the time that ?the first Senate, which met in 1789, approved 19 rules by a majority vote. Those rules have been changed from time to time.? He also forced rule changes governing debate in 1980 and 1987.
    During sometimes-heated debate in the past week, Mr. Byrd defended the Senate's filibuster rule, which requires 60 votes to break, as a sacrosanct part of the chamber's procedures that should not and could not be changed without violating the Senate's historic checks and balances on majority rule.
    But in 1979, when the Democrats were wielding power, he said, ?This Congress is not obliged to be bound by the dead hand of the past.?
    In a statement Friday, Mr. Kennedy's office denied that the senator has changed his view on the filibuster.
    ?Of course there have been many times in the past when he opposed the Republicans' blocking of a particular bill or nominee and urged his colleagues to vote to close debate and proceed with an up-or-down vote. But that's different from breaking the rules to change the rules in order to get to a vote,? his spokesman said.
    Sen. Russell D. Feingold, Wisconsin Democrat, who voted 10 years ago to end the filibuster but now defends its use to block judicial nominations, has a different answer for his change of heart.
    ?My view has changed because of the abuse of power by those running the Senate,? he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
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R050523   Sen. Allen predicts showdown will end in 'nuclear option'
 

By James G. Lakely and Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Sen. George Allen, Virginia Republican, said yesterday that he doesn't think a compromise can be reached with Senate Democrats and predicted his party has the 51 votes needed to employ the so-called "nuclear option" that will prevent the filibustering of judicial nominees.
    "I just think that it is not that big of a deal for senators to exercise their constitutional responsibility," Mr. Allen said on ABC's "This Week." "I think that we'll get the constitutional option done, and we'll vote on judges."
    Also yesterday, Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, answered "yes" when asked on CBS' "Face the Nation" whether his party "has the votes to overturn this Senate rule."
    Meanwhile, Democrats have abandoned their threats to shut down legislative action if Republicans change Senate rules to bar the use of filibusters to block judicial nominations.
    The showdown is scheduled for tomorrow, when Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican, will call for a vote on Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen, whose nomination been blocked by a Democratic filibuster for four years.
    In a March 15 letter to Mr. Frist, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, said that if Republicans banned the judicial filibusters, Democrats would "be reluctant to enter into any consent agreement that facilitates Senate activities, even on routine matters."
    Several weeks of comparisons between the Democratic plan and the 1995 government shutdown that hurt House Speaker Newt Gingrich politically put Mr. Reid on the defensive.
    "I'm not Newt Gingrich," Mr. Reid said.
    By last week, Democrats had surrendered their promise of such retaliation.
    "We are not going to attempt to shut down the Senate," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat and early architect of the filibusters. "We are not going to attempt to slow down the Senate."
    The new Democratic plan for retaliation, Mr. Schumer said, will be to "implement our strategy of basically trying to use the Senate rules to put items on the agenda that the American people care about."
    "We are going to attempt to use the rules -- as well as outside pressure -- to force the Senate to take up agenda items that we haven't done before," said Mr. Schumer, who now heads the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC).
    Some lawmakers were holding out hope for a compromise before tomorrow's vote. Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, told "Fox News Sunday" that the nuclear option will "hurt the Senate in the long run."
    "We're talking about changing the rules of the Senate with 51 votes, which has never happened in the history of the United States Senate," Mr. McCain said, adding that he was worried that eliminating the filibuster for judicial nominees would lead to the elimination of the 214-year-old parliamentary tactic altogether.
    "If you have 51 votes changing the rules of the Senate, nominations of the president is next, and then legislation follows that, and we will now become an institution exactly like the House of Representatives," Mr. McCain sad.
    Mr. McConnell dismissed any notion of extending tomorrow's deadline for hatching a compromise and said the rule change is necessary because Democrats have abused the Senate tradition of comity.
    "It was possible to filibuster judges for 214 years that had majority support in the Senate, but it was never done," Mr. McConnell said. "We restrained ourselves, and I think this is a good opportunity for the Senate to restrain itself, to get back to a tradition and a pattern and the norm that prevailed in the Senate until the last Congress."
    Mr. Schumer acknowledged that the Senate would slow down only if Republicans insist upon advancing their agenda and that Senate tradition of consensus and bipartisanship was gone forever.
    "The comity of the Senate, which is deference of the majority to set the agenda, will not be there anymore, period," Mr. Schumer said.
    Sen. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut Democrat, appeared with Mr. Allen on "This Week" and said he was optimistic that a compromise could be reached.
    "In the end, like most accomplishments in the Senate, it's not going to be perfect for anybody," Mr. Lieberman said. "You've got six or seven Democrats, six or seven Republicans, moderate, centrist mavericks, independents. They don't want the place to blow up."
    Mr. Reid last week offered a promise to drop the filibuster except in "extraordinary circumstances" and allow to pass all but two or three of Mr. Bush's nearly one dozen high-level court appointees in exchange for the Republicans' abandoning their threat to change the rules.
    Republicans have rejected that compromise on the principle that all of Mr. Bush's judicial nominees are qualified and say they don't trust the Democrats to narrowly define "extraordinary circumstances."
    "My own hope had been that the Republicans promise not to go to the nuclear option," Mr. Lieberman said. "I'm an optimist by nature. So you can discount for this ... but I think the bipartisan compromise is going to be agreed to."
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L050524   High court will review repeal of abortion law
 

By Cheryl Wetzstein
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The Supreme Court yesterday agreed to review the repeal of a New Hampshire law requiring parental notification before a minor can get an abortion, re-entering the abortion debate after a filibuster compromise on Capitol Hill and amid speculation about Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist's health.
    Planned Parenthood of Northern New England and others successfully challenged the law in the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, arguing that it lacked an exception to protect the mother's health as required by a 2000 Supreme Court decision.
    The decision to take the case prompted concern from pro-choice advocates.
     "We are surprised and disappointed the Supreme Court has decided to hear this case," Karen Pearl, interim president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said yesterday.
    "Yet, we are confident that this court will reaffirm a woman's right to abortion access. States should never put women's health at risk," she said.
    Roger Stenson, executive director of Citizens for Life, a group in North Hampton, N.H., that pushed for the 2003 parental notification law, expressed pleasure in the court's plan to take it up in the fall.
    In 1990, the high court — including Justices Rehnquist, Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony M. Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — upheld a Minnesota parental notification law that is legally indistinguishable from the New Hampshire law, Mr. Stenson said.
    "Unless one of those justices changes their mind again," the high court should reverse the 1st Circuit and uphold the New Hampshire law, he said.
    The timing "is a reminder to the American public about how important this issue is," Jennifer Dalven, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer handling the abortion case, told the Associated Press.
    Chief Justice Rehnquist has not been able to persuade his colleagues to roll back the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that made abortion a constitutional right over his dissent just a year after he joined the court.
    Yesterday, Chief Justice Rehnquist, 80, was seen being wheeled into the Capitol Medical Department, where he stayed briefly before leaving the Capitol. The chief justice has been treated for thyroid cancer and was absent from the bench between October and March, triggering speculation that he may announce his retirement at the end of the court's session next month.
    A vacancy would allow Mr. Bush to make his first appointment to the Supreme Court.
    Advocates said the New Hampshire case, Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, also will escalate interest in the Senate debate over judicial appointments.
    "Who sits on the court when this case is decided is critical," said Ms. Pearl. Only the Supreme Court can protect abortion against "extremists in states like New Hampshire," she said.
    The Senate had been immersed in conflict over the Democrats' filibusters of some of the president's appointees to the federal appellate bench, but the fight is widely viewed as a precursor to an eventual party battle over a Supreme Court nominee.
    Republicans had been considering a rules change that would lower from 60 to 51 the number of votes nominees need to get a full floor vote, although a compromise was reached last night.
    This case "makes the filibuster situation really crucial to us," Mr. Stenson said.
    "Are we going to get justices on the Supreme Court who are Bush judges or are we going to get Kennedy-Biden judges? That's what the filibuster issue is all about," he said, referring to Democratic Sens. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware.
    In this case, the justices will decide whether health exceptions are required in abortion laws requiring parental notification. The lower court struck down New Hampshire's law for not having one.
    In their appeal, New Hampshire officials said the notification law need not have an "explicit health exception" because about 34 other state laws cover such contingencies. They also disagreed that the Supreme Court's 2000 ruling requires all abortion laws to provide exceptions to protect the mother's health.
    The court's 2000 ruling, its last major abortion decision, ruled that state abortion laws must provide an exception to protect the mother's health. Justices at the time reasoned that a Nebraska law against partial-birth abortion put an "undue burden" on women's abortion rights.
 
     This article is based in part on wire service reports.
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R050524   7 Republicans abandon GOP on filibuster
 

By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Seven Senate Republicans bolted from their leaders last night and dropped their support for the "nuclear option" in exchange for seven Democrats' abandoning filibusters against three of President Bush's judicial nominees.
    "This is really good news for every American tonight," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, said moments after the deal was announced last night on live television. "This is a significant victory."
    The seven Republican signers were Sens. Mike DeWine of Ohio, Susan Collins of Maine, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Lincoln Chaffee of Rhode Island, John McCain of Arizona, John W. Warner of Virginia and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine.
    The seven Democratic signers were Sens. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana, Ken Salazar of Colorado and Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii.
    The deal didn't satisfy Majority Leader Bill Frist, who has maintained that the Constitution requires up-or-down votes on all judicial nominees.
    "The agreement announced tonight falls short of that principle," the Tennessee Republican said on the Senate floor. "It falls short. It has some good news, and it has some disappointing news."
    The deal leaves him essentially powerless to ban filibusters against judicial nominees before a fight over a Supreme Court nomination -- at least one of which is expected this summer.
    The agreement also leaves open the possibility of Democrats' mounting a filibuster against judicial nominees "under extraordinary circumstances." There is no similar explicit out in the agreement for Republican signers, beyond a pledge of "mutual trust and confidence."
    The two-page agreement specifically admonished President Bush, saying that the word "advice" in the Senate's constitutional responsibility should not be taken lightly.
    "We encourage the Executive branch of government to consult with members of the Senate, both Democratic and Republican, prior to submitting a judicial nomination to the Senate for consideration," the senators wrote in the memorandum of understanding signed by the 14 negotiators.
    Under the deal, Democrats -- who hold 44 of the chamber's 100 seats, plus the support of an independent -- agreed to allow final votes on Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen, California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown and former Alabama Attorney General William Pryor, all nominated to U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals.
    Democrats still refused to agree to allow votes on William G. Myers III, a former lawyer for the Interior Department, and Henry Saad, a Michigan state judge.
    The negotiators trumpeted the deal as a victory for the historical role of the Senate as a chamber that operates on consensus and collegiality.
    "In a Senate that is increasingly polarized, the bipartisan center held," said Mr. Lieberman. "The Senate is back in business," added Mr. Graham.
    Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said her group was "heartened that the crisis has been averted and the right to filibuster preserved for upcoming Supreme Court nominations. We are confident that a Supreme Court nominee who won't even state a position on Roe v. Wade is the kind of 'extraordinary circumstance' this deal envisions."
    Republicans and outside conservative groups were hardly cheering. Former presidential candidate Gary Bauer said the deal was a "sellout," and Sen. George Allen of Virginia called it "disappointing."
    "The desire of millions of Americans to restore balance to our federal courts has been thwarted behind closed doors by 14 senators," Mr. Bauer said.
    Mr. Allen added that it was "not a good deal for the two nominees who were accorded a nice wake by being thrown overboard at sea."
    The National Coalition to End Judicial Filibusters said such terms as "extraordinary circumstances" and "mutual trust" are meaningless because "Democrats have shown themselves to be without any principle."
    "Today's deal not only establishes a minority veto even smaller than the previously maintained obstruction, vesting power not in 100 senators, not in 60, not in 51, but in a small number of 14," the group said.
    Mr. Frist has said that the issue isn't about horse-trading over particular nominees, but rather about the principle of having final votes on all nominees.
    "If Owen, Pryor and Brown can receive the courtesy and respect of a fair up-or-down vote, so can Myers and Saad," Mr. Frist said. "So I will continue to work with everything in my power to see that these judicial nominees also receive that fair up-or-down vote that they deserve."
    With the vote count already tight, the loss of seven Republicans ensures that Mr. Frist wouldn't get the votes needed to use the "nuclear option" to ban judicial filibusters.
    The White House echoed the majority leader.
    "Many of these nominees have waited for quite some time to have an up-or-down vote and now they are going to get one. That's progress," press secretary Scott McClellan said. "We will continue working to push for up-or-down votes for all the nominees."
    Mr. Reid took a moment to thank one senator from across the aisle in particular.
    "If there was ever a Southern gentleman, it is the white-haired senator from Virginia, Senator Warner," he said, noting the leadership role of Mr. Warner in crafting the compromise.
    Moments earlier as the deal was about to be announced, several Republicans offered the lectern to Mr. Byrd, who demurred, waiting instead for "his turn."
    "Your turn is whenever you want it to be," said Mr. McCain, a chief architect of the deal who had to leave the press conference before it ended to make an early screening of a movie about himself.
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M050524   Moyers unplugged
    Six congressmen -- five Democrats and one independent "who believe in an accountable, diverse, fair and independent media" -- have organized the Future of American Media Caucus.
    And today, in their first major event in the Rayburn House Office Building, the caucus will hear PBS veteran Bill Moyers discuss the steps needed to ensure diverse and independent reporting.
    In recent days, Mr. Moyers told the National Conference for Media Reform that he's been increasingly a target of the "right-wing media," including Kenneth Tomlinson, chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
    "I can tell this story because I've been living it," Mr. Moyers said. "It's been in the news this week, including reports of more attacks on a single journalist -- yours truly -- by the right-wing media and their allies at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting."
    America is seeing unfold, he said, "the age-old ambition of power and ideology to squelch and punish journalists who tell the stories that make princes and priests uncomfortable. Let me assure you that I take in stride attacks by the radical right-wingers who have not given up demonizing me although I retired over six months ago.
    "They've been after me for years now, and I suspect they will be stomping on my grave to make sure I don't come back from the dead."
    As for the new media caucus on Capitol Hill, it's chaired by Rep. Maurice Hinchey, New York Democrat, and co-chaired by Rep. Bernard Sanders, Vermont independent. The latter says he is concerned that the American public has "fewer programming choices and a rapidly dwindling supply of independent news and information sources."
    He says the caucus "is an important step in the fight to maintain local perspectives and diversity of opinion in the media."
    Another caucus co-chairman, Rep. Louise M. Slaughter, New York Democrat, says "ever since the Reagan administration trashed the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, the accuracy, fairness, and balance of broadcast content has been in steep decline."
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L050524   Cloning war
    "In Missouri as in Massachusetts, a Republican governor has been battling legislators over human cloning," National Review noted yesterday in an editorial at www.nationalreview.com.
    "There are, however, two big differences. Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt faces a legislature controlled by his own party, whereas Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney confronts a heavily Democratic legislature. And Romney is fighting against cloning, while Blunt is fighting for it," National Review said.
    "Blunt's battles have received less attention than Romney's -- in part because Romney may be running for president in 2008, while any presidential ambitions Blunt has lie further in the future; in part because Massachusetts is in the northeastern corridor, which still interests the national media more than the Midwest. But the controversy in Missouri, however unnoticed, has certainly gotten heated. Pro-lifers have accused the self-described pro-life governor of 'betraying' them. Earlier this month, he accused them of political 'game playing.'
    "In truth, there is a sincere disagreement between most pro-lifers and Gov. Blunt. The governor should think twice about taking cheap shots at constituencies that helped to elect him. Pro-lifers should refrain from accusing him of a betrayal, since he disclosed his position when he ran last year.
    "Unfortunately, his position is an incoherent mess."
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H050524   Spokane mayor won't quit in gay Web scandal

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) -- Mayor Jim West yesterday apologized for using "poor judgment," but rejected a demand by local business leaders to resign amid charges that he offered city jobs to men he met in homosexual chat rooms.
    Mr. West, 55, apologized for using "poor judgment in my private life."
    He didn't elaborate, but has previously said he visited the Internet site Gay.com and had relations with adult men. It was his first press conference since returning from a brief leave of absence.
    The former state legislator who has often opposed pro-homosexual measures said he intends to serve the remaining 2½ years of his term as head of the city of 200,000 and that "when all the investigations are concluded, I expect to be exonerated."
    The Spokesman-Review has reported that Mr. West offered city jobs to young men he met online and sexually abused two boys decades ago as a Boy Scout leader.
    Mr. West denied the molestation allegations and said he didn't use city equipment to visit the homosexual site. He refused to answer questions from reporters after his announcement.
    Shortly before Mr. West spoke, business leaders demanded that he resign "in the best interest of our community."
    The FBI is investigating whether Mr. West improperly used his political office and city resources. The city is investigating whether Mr. West's city computer was used improperly.
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O050524   Medicaid lets sex offenders get Viagra

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- Federal officials are scrambling to plug a legal loophole that allows convicted rapists and other high-risk sex offenders to receive erectile-dysfunction drugs paid for by Medicaid.
    The issue was revealed Sunday by the New York state comptroller's office, which said audits of the period from January 2000 to March 2005 found that 198 sex offenders in New York received Medicaid-reimbursed Viagra after their convictions. Their crimes included offenses against children as young as 2, Comptroller Alan Hevesi said.
    "Now that this issue has been brought to our attention, we are certainly going to see what we can do administratively, if anything," said Mary Kahn, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
    She said legislation might be needed to address the issue. New York's Democratic senators, Charles E. Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton, said they would support such a bill. Mr. Schumer said he will sponsor the legislation.
    "Giving convicted sex offenders government-funded Viagra is like giving convicted murderers an assault rifle when they get out of jail," Mr. Schumer said.
    Rep. Joe L. Barton, Texas Republican, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce committee, said yesterday he would try to end the "perverse misuse of the taxpayers' money" as part of the committee's work to reform Medicaid.
    Miss Kahn said taxpayer-funded Viagra for sex offenders was an unintended consequence of the Medicaid law and an issue that the federal government hadn't known about before Mr. Hevesi's report.
    States can limit the number of pills dispensed to cut costs, she said, but action on specific drugs must be the same for all Medicaid patients.
    "We are going to make every effort to see what the states or federal government can take to address this problem without harming people who have a legitimate need for this drug, such as men who had prostate cancer and diabetes," Miss Kahn said. "We want to see what remedies there are to address this problem."
    In a letter Sunday to HHS Secretary Michael O. Leavitt, Mr. Hevesi requested immediate action.
    Mr. Hevesi's study only covered Viagra, Hevesi spokesman David Neustadt said. State auditors are reviewing whether other prescription drugs for sexual dysfunction are being reimbursed by Medicaid for convicted sex offenders in the state.
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L050524   Dueling stem-cell bills face vote in the House
 

By Amy Fagan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

House lawmakers will vote today on whether to expand President Bush's 2001 policy on federal funding for embryonic-stem-cell research.
    Mr. Bush has promised to veto the Republican-sponsored bill, and pro-life conservatives are advancing a separate measure -- also up for a House vote today -- that focuses on adult stem-cell research that uses bone marrow and umbilical cord blood instead of human embryos.
    Both bills have bipartisan support and are expected by their backers to be approved by the House. But debate on the emotional issue that divides Republicans will no doubt be highly charged.
    To the chagrin of many pro-life conservatives, House Republican leaders agreed earlier this year to give Rep. Michael N. Castle, Delaware Republican, and his allies a House vote on expanding Mr. Bush's 2001 policy, which allowed federal funding for human embryonic-stem-cell research but limited it to a group of embryonic-stem-cell lines already in existence.
    Mr. Castle's bill -- which faces a straight up-or-down vote today -- would allow federal funds for embryonic-stem-cell research that uses human embryos left over from in vitro fertilization clinics. Advocates hope that in the future, such cells will produce treatments for many ailments, because they can develop into any type of body cell.
    Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette, the lead Democrat on Mr. Castle's bill, said public opinion is on the bill backers' side, so ?if it's not law this year, it's going to be law soon.?
    House members today will first consider the alternative bill, crafted by Rep. Christopher H. Smith, New Jersey Republican, that would provide federal dollars for research and treatments that avoid human embryos and instead use stem cells from bone marrow and from umbilical cord blood -- which have been used to treat leukemia and sickle-cell-anemia patients.
    ?One of the best-kept secrets in America today is that umbilical cord blood stem cells and adult stem cells are curing people of a myriad of terrible conditions and diseases,? said Mr. Smith, who opposes Mr. Castle's bill because human embryos are destroyed when stem cells are extracted.
    Many lawmakers, including Mr. Castle, are expected to vote for both bills. But for conservative pro-life members who strongly oppose Mr. Castle's bill, Mr. Smith's measure will be a key opportunity to get out the message that they do support stem-cell research that has been successful without using embryos.
    Mr. Castle and his allies say that their bill will pass today, despite the veto threat and Mr. Smith's alternative bill, and that chances are good in the Senate, too. Mr. Castle admits that he doesn't have the votes needed to override a presidential veto, but said if the bill passes both chambers and pressure continues to build, ?maybe we can sit down with the White House and negotiate? a new policy.
    Mr. Smith's bill would reauthorize the national bone-marrow program and establish a new funding stream and national database for collecting blood from umbilical cords and placentas, normally discarded. Only 40 cord blood banks exist, but Mr. Smith's bill aims to dramatically increase the number so treatment will be available to anyone who needs it.
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R050525   GOP senator faults Bush in filibuster deal
 

By James G. Lakelyand Ralph Z. Hallow
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Sen. Lindsay Graham, the South Carolina Republican who helped craft the compromise that effectively scuttles several of President Bush's judicial nominees and saves others, said he hopes the White House has learned a lesson.
    "The White House has to more closely collaborate with the Senate," Mr. Graham said, adding that if Mr. Bush had employed a little more personal charm and politics, he might have had his way.
    "If we talk more, we'll get a better result," Mr. Graham said. "Talking helps. This president is a wonderful person to speak to in person. I think this gives [Mr. Bush] a fresh start."
    Manuel Miranda, director of the National Coalition to End Judicial Filibusters and former Senate Judiciary Committee staffer, said Mr. Bush did not work hard enough to get votes for all his nominees, and didn't keep Republicans in line and defeat the minority Democrats.
    "This is a loss for the White House bigger than any loss on Social Security," Mr. Miranda said. "[The White House] did not weigh in and every president in the future has been damaged.
    "These were the president's nominees and the presidency's prerogative," he said. "The White House needed to invest action, not just words."
    White House spokesman Scott McClellan conceded that the president didn't get all that he wanted -- and he will continue to push for the full Senate to vote on all his judicial nominees -- but that Mr. Bush is generally pleased with the development.
    "These are nominees that have waited for a number of years to receive an up-or-down vote, and now they're going to get one," Mr. McClellan said. "We consider that to be real progress, and so we're pleased that the Senate is moving forward on these judicial nominees."
    Conservative activists, however, were still fuming yesterday, and said the White House should share in the blame for a deal that still leaves open the possibility that the Democrats will filibuster future Supreme Court nominees.
    "I wish the president had done more," said Eagle Forum President Phyllis Schlafly. "He has the biggest megaphone of all."
    Mrs. Schlafly said much of the press repeated, without challenge, the Democrats' line that the change in the rules on filibustering judicial candidates would have violated more than 200 years of Senate tradition.
    "That Democrat line was a lie," Mrs. Schlafly said, adding that the president could have done more to counteract that.
    She also said that Mr. Bush should have been able to keep at least two Republican senators, Mr. Graham and Mike DeWine of Ohio, from deserting the leadership and joining Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, on the side of a filibuster compromise.
    The Monday agreement between seven Republicans and seven Democrats averted a showdown over judicial filibusters. The Democrats agreed to votes on three of the five blocked nominees in exchange for the Republicans dropping support of a rules change to allow a floor vote on all the nominees.
    American Conservative Union Chairman David A. Keene called the compromise "a direct assault on prerogatives of the president of United States."
    "If you listened to what the senators [who participated in the deal] were saying at their press conference, it's that from now on Bush will have to vet prospective nominees with the members of the Senate before he sends them any nominees," Mr. Keene said.
    "[They] would view the president's failure to do that as 'extraordinary circumstances' that would allow them to filibuster," Mr. Keene said.
    James Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family, said the deal "represents a complete bailout and betrayal by a cabal of Republicans and a great victory for united Democrats."
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R050525   Owen proceeds toward an OK; anger grows
 

By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Senate Democrats yesterday abandoned their filibuster against Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen, who was nominated more than four years ago to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
    The floor action to end debate and allow an up-or-down confirmation vote passed overwhelmingly, on an 81-18 margin aided by 23 Democrats who reversed themselves yesterday after having prevented the Owen nomination from being voted on for years.
    It reversed four previous votes and was the first test of the dramatic last-minute deal struck Monday night to avert the ?nuclear option? with which Republicans had planned to clear the filibuster.
    The Democratic reversal proved that ?this is about the politics of character assassination, the politics of personal destruction,? said Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican and ardent supporter of Justice Owen. ?In Washington, perhaps people can be forgiven for believing that happens far too much.?
    But even as Justice Owen's nomination proceeded toward confirmation as early as today, both sides remained divided over the precise meaning of the deal that cleared the way for her and two other nominees but left available to Democrats the judicial filibuster, which Republicans contend is unconstitutional.
    The primary point of contention is the definition of "extraordinary circumstances" under which the deal permits Democrats to mount future judicial filibusters without facing Republican retribution such as the nuclear option.
    "The terms 'extraordinary circumstances' do not lend themselves to any easy interpretation," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said yesterday. "But when the Democratic leader observes that means 'occasional' and 'very infrequent,' that is very reassuring."
    Within minutes of the deal's announcement Monday night, NARAL Pro-Choice America announced that "extraordinary circumstances" should include any nominees who don't state their positions on Roe v. Wade, the court case that made abortion a constitutional right. Other liberals have defined "extraordinary circumstances" as any vacancy on the Supreme Court.
    Several conservative groups, including the Committee for Justice, came to quite a different conclusion because the deal includes unfettered confirmation votes for Justice Owen and two other conservative jurists — California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown and former Alabama Attorney General William H. Pryor.
    "The fact that Senate Democrats are willing to allow cloture on Owen, Brown and Pryor indicates that conservative judicial philosophy cannot be considered the basis for a filibuster, or an 'extraordinary circumstance,' " said Sean Rushton, executive director of Committee for Justice.
    Anyone looking yesterday for clarification from the signers and drafters of the Monday compromise didn't find it.
    Asked what he meant by the phrase, Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, replied: "It's like child pornography, my friend. You know it when you see it."
    Sen. Ken Salazar, Colorado Democrat, responded by saying, "I want judges to be fair, impartial and will uphold the law."
    Asked whether Mr. Bush's nominees fail to meet those credentials, Mr. Salazar said: "Some of them do, but I'm not going to reach a decision without all of the facts."
    Sen. Mike DeWine, Ohio Republican, said the group of 14 senators purposely "left it undefined."
    Republicans defending the compromise pointed to Mr. DeWine's statement shortly after the deal was reached.
    "If an individual senator believes in the future that a filibuster is taking place under something that's not extraordinary circumstances, we of course reserve the right to do what we could have done tomorrow which is to cast a 'yes' vote for the constitutional option," he said Monday night.
    A Republican Senate leadership aide said that if Democratic signatories engage in a frivolous filibuster, then the Republican signers will happily support the "nuclear option," which would set a new precedent to ban judicial filibusters.
    "Hell hath no fury like a Senate moderate scorned," the aide said.
    However the deal will be carried out, it opened the way for yesterday's vote in favor of ending the debate on Justice Owen so that she could be granted a final up-or-down vote.
    Yesterday's noon vote did not avoid all contention.
    As the Senate clerk officially read the nomination under consideration, Sen. Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat who has been a key opponent of four of Mr. Bush's judicial nominees, arose and asked to make a "parliamentary inquiry."
    Sen. John E. Sununu, New Hampshire Republican who was seated in the chair as the presiding officer, gave Mr. Levin the floor.
    Wanting to establish that judicial filibusters are legitimate because 60 votes are required to invoke cloture or end debate, Mr. Levin asked how many votes are required for cloture "under the rules and precedence of the Senate."
    Mr. Sununu, a first-term senator, ignored Mr. Levin's inquiry.
    Ten seconds passed and still Mr. Sununu refused to answer Mr. Levin's question.
    "Is there an answer to my parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President?" Mr. Levin asked again to no answer. After about a half-minute of ignoring Mr. Levin's request, the clerk began calling the roll for the vote on ending debate on Justice Owen's nomination. The final confirmation vote on her nomination is expected at noon today.
    But President Bush wasn't waiting to celebrate.
    "Over four years ago, I put Judge Owen's name up to the Senate for confirmation," he said in an Oval Office meeting with Justice Owen, Majority Leader Bill Frist and others. "Thanks to the good work of the leader — whose work cleared the way — Judge Owen is finally going to get an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor. She is my friend, and more importantly, she's a great judge."
    Justice Owen, who has been discussed as a possible Supreme Court nominee, thanked Mr. Bush and promised to remember "that you expect judges to follow the law."
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O050525   Teen pregnancy dips by a third since '90
 

By Cheryl Wetzstein
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The nation's teen pregnancy rate has fallen by nearly 30 percent since 1990, and a national campaign has set a new 10-year goal to bring it down by another third.
    It's time to "celebrate the progress ... and push on," Sarah S. Brown, director of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, said at a Capitol Hill event yesterday.
    Projects will include researching boys and young men in pregnancy prevention, addressing the high pregnancy rates of Hispanic youths and encouraging states to set their own goals to reduce teen pregnancies, Mrs. Brown said.
    The U.S. teen pregnancy rate peaked in 1990 but fell by 28 percent as of 2000, the latest year for which data are available. The campaign yesterday projected further declines in 2003 and 2005, based on teen birthrates, which are continuing to fall.
    Pregnancy rate data lag birthrate data by several years because the former is based on birthrates, abortions and miscarriages.
    Campaign leaders and members of Congress yesterday credited parents, teens, schools, communities, religious groups, policy-makers and the press for reducing the pregnancy rate -- a feat that was not expected, said Isabel Sawhill, campaign president and Brookings Institution scholar.
    When the campaign was launched in 1996 with a goal of reducing teen pregnancy by a third in 10 years, "many people said you'll never be able to do that. ... It's too ambitious a goal," Mrs. Sawhill said.
    She said four out of 10 girls who were teenagers in 1996 would become pregnant at some point before turning 20. Today, the number is three out of 10, and if the campaign's goal is achieved in 2015, two out of 10 will become pregnant as a teen, she said.
    Locally, in 2000, the District had the nation's highest pregnancy rate, with 128 pregnancies per 1,000 teens ages 15 to 19. However, this is a 50 percent decline from 1992, when there were 254 pregnancies per 1,000 in that age group, according to data from the Alan Guttmacher Institute.
    Similarly, in that period, pregnancy rates fell by 29 percent in Virginia, to 72 pregnancies per 1,000 teens; by 23 percent in Maryland, to 91 pregnancies per 1,000 teens; and 21 percent in West Virginia, to 67 pregnancies per 1,000 teens.
    As part of its mission, the nonpartisan National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy often finds itself in the "tiresome" abstinence-versus-contraceptives debate, Mrs. Brown said. Both approaches work and are needed, she said yesterday.
    "Whatever you're doing, don't stop," she said.
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R050525   Democrats count victory in pact on judicial picks
 

By Stephen Dinan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Democratic leaders claimed victory yesterday over the deal senators cut regarding filibusters of judicial nominees, while most Republicans said it violated their principles and conservative activists vowed retribution.
    "Our republic stands strong. Our Constitution is solid. Our flag flies over a nation that has reaffirmed its faith in freedom," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, while Sens. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, and Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi praised the deal for averting a crisis.
    But while most Democrats crowed, the Congressional Black Caucus sounded a discordant note.
    "This deal is more of a capitulation than a compromise," said Rep. Melvin Watt, North Carolina Democrat and caucus chairman.
    He objected that the deal specifically guaranteed two nominees -- Janice Rogers Brown and William Pryor -- would not be filibustered, despite what Mr. Watt said were "documented histories of opposing the rights of African-Americans and of hostility to the broad mainstream of law and rights enacted by the Congress over the past 75 years."
    Rep. Albert R. Wynn, Maryland Democrat, said the issue was what Democrats gave up.
    "Preserving the filibuster was valuable because of the Supreme Court nominees coming down the road, but the price was too high with these appeals court judges now sneaking in," he said.
    Most Republicans were just as despondent about the outcome, though they saw a capitulation on the part of the seven Republicans who joined with seven Democrats to strike a deal. Under the terms, the seven Democrats pledged to grant up-or-down votes on three nominees and to use restraint with filibusters in the future in exchange for seven Republicans' pledge to vote against declaring the filibuster of judicial nominees unconstitutional.
    Sen. Christopher S. Bond, Missouri Republican, called it a "Band-Aid" that simply puts off a showdown, while Sen. George Allen, Virginia Republican, called it "a major disappointment on principle."
    "Ultimately, nothing has been settled when a vacancy arises on the U.S. Supreme Court," Mr. Allen said.
    Some of the seven Republicans were hearing from their constituents -- particularly Sen. John W. Warner of Virginia.
    "Look who's happy today -- seven Republicans and all the Democrats," said Kenneth Cuccinelli, a Republican state senator in Virginia who called the deal "a total cave-in" and blamed Mr. Warner in particular.
    "He cannot get through another election without a significant Republican challenger," Mr. Cuccinelli said.
    Others were just upset they might not get a chance to see that.
    "Sen. John Warner is getting old and probably will not run for the Senate again. Too bad, because it denies me my chance to vote against him," wrote Lyn Nofziger, a former Reagan administration official, on his Web site.
    John Ullyot, Mr. Warner's spokesman, said the office was getting "a large volume of calls on both sides of the issue," but didn't disclose the breakdown.
    "He appreciates hearing from his constituents and from others who have strong feelings on issues before the Senate," Mr. Ullyot said.
    Mr. Allen's office, meanwhile, received 500 calls as of yesterday afternoon, with the majority of the callers opposed to the deal.
    Still, like most of his colleagues, Mr. Allen would not criticize Mr. Warner or the other deal makers.
    "It's their point of view," he said. "It doesn't change my view that senators ought to get off their cushy seats and vote yes or no on judges."
    In addition to Mr. Warner, the six other Republicans were Sens. Mike DeWine of Ohio, Susan Collins of Maine, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, John McCain of Arizona and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine.
    Mr. Warner wasn't the only Republican taking heat.
    Admitting that conservatives "must hate my guts right now," Mr. Graham said he's convinced he did the right thing and voters will understand.
    "If you thought we were winning this debate, you weren't reading the polls right," Mr. Graham said. "If you thought the Democrats were winning the debate, you're on the wrong planet."
    The seven Democrats who struck the deal were Sens. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana, Ken Salazar of Colorado and Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii.
    While Republicans were being hammered, the Democrats faced no such backlash at home.
    Joelle Martinez, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Democratic Party, said they were fielding lots of calls praising Mr. Salazar.
    "It's been a while since we've had a Democratic senator here from Colorado, they're happy about the national spotlight and being represented on this issue," Ms. Martinez said.
    •Christina Bellantoni, Brian DeBose and James G. Lakely contributed to this report.
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L050525   House OKs bill on stem cells
 

By Brian DeBose
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The House yesterday passed a bill to ease restrictions on human-embryonic-stem-cell research, but it did not gain enough votes to overcome a promised presidential veto.
    The bill, co-sponsored by Reps. Michael N. Castle, Delaware Republican, and Diana DeGette, Colorado Democrat, calls for nearly 400,000 human embryos currently in cold storage to be used for experimentation.
    The proposal also creates a national inventory for stem cells derived from umbilical-cord blood and reauthorizes the national bone-marrow registry. The legislation passed 238-194, but supporters would need a two-thirds majority to override a veto.
    "This research is already going on at the state level -- and to some degree at the federal level, and 110 million people will benefit from this research," Mr. Castle said.
    But President Bush yesterday vowed to cast his first veto should the legislation make it out of the Senate.
    "This bill would take us across a critical ethical line by creating new incentives for the ongoing destruction of emerging human life. Crossing this line would be a great mistake," the president said in an East Room speech, attended by about 100 people, including 21 children who were adopted as embryos frozen in fertility clinics.
    Although he set policy in 2001 that allowed federal funding for stem-cell research using the 78 stem-cell lines that existed then, Mr. Bush yesterday reiterated his stance that the federal government should not "use public money to support the further destruction of human life." Mr. Bush said that seeking cures to diseases comes at a high price if embryos were used.
    "In the complex debate over embryonic-stem-cell research, we must remember that real human lives are involved -- both the lives of those with diseases that might find cures from this research and the lives of the embryos that will be destroyed in the process," Mr. Bush said.
    House opponents added that the bill will only open a Pandora's box that could lead down the road to human cloning -- for a science that has yet to yield any calculable results. There was clearly no partisan line on the debate or the vote as both Democrats and Republicans were split on the issue, but proponents had the advantage.
    House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Texas Republican, took a rare position as one of the floor managers in an effort to bolster the opposition and prevent one of the most clear efforts by the House to buck the president's wishes.
    "The issue of human cloning and embryonic-stem-cell research cuts to the very core of politics," Mr. DeLay said. "The best one can say about embryonic research is it is the scientific exploration into the benefit of killing human beings in an attempt to justify the unfortunate price it will cost -- kill some in hopes of saving others."
    He said arguments from Mrs. DeGette that it does not call for "embryo destruction" were ridiculous.
    Opposing Democrats, led by Rep. Bart Stupak, Michigan Democrat, were equally concerned about the ends-justifying-the-means approach.
    "We as a nation believe there is an ethical line that should not be crossed and that human life even at the embryonic stage should not be subject to manipulation," Mr. Stupak said.
    Centrist Republicans led by Mr. Castle and Democrats led by Mrs. DeGette said they hope the president will accept the will of Congress, because the bill is likely to pass unscathed through the conference negotiation process with the Senate.
    The House yesterday also passed on a 431-1 vote a bill to facilitate research on stem cells from umbilical-cord blood and from adults. That bill allows federal dollars to be spent to collect cord-blood stem cells from the placenta and umbilical cord after birth, proven research that has been used to successfully treat 67 diseases.
    Rep. Ron Paul, Texas Republican, was the lone dissenter.
    Rep. Jim Langevin, Rhode Island Democrat, the first quadriplegic to be elected to the House, said the embryonic research could help find a cure for his condition, a fact he said should not be ignored.
    "We have a responsibility to ensure this research proceeds and with the ethical safeguards and guidelines, and H.R. 810 meets this responsibility," Mr. Langevin said.
    •Joseph Curl contributed to this report.
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R050525   Priscilla Owen confirmed
 

ASSOCIATED PRESS

The Senate today confirmed Priscilla Owen as a federal appellate judge, ending the four-year ordeal of the Texas jurist who was thrust into the center of the partisan battle over President Bush's judicial nominations.
    The 56-43 vote to appoint Owen to the New Orlean-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was a consequence of an agreement reached earlier this week that averted, for the time being, a bitter dispute over Democratic use of the filibuster to block Bush's judicial choices.
    Bush, pleased with the vote on a nominee he said would bring "a wealth of experience and expertise" to the bench, said it should be followed by others. "I urge the Senate to build on this progress and provide my judicial nominees the up-or-down votes they deserve," the president said in a statement.
    Owen, said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., "withstood an orchestrated partisan attack on her record."
    Democrats had used their filibuster powers four times in the past to prevent a vote on Owen, who they said was too conservative for the lifetime position. On Tuesday, following the filibuster agreement, the Senate overwhelmingly voted to end the stalemate and bring the nomination to a vote.
    "A supremely qualified nominee received the up-or-down vote she deserved," said fellow Texan Sen. John Cornyn. The vote, the Republican senator said, was "something we could have done four years ago."
    Owen, a Texas Supreme Court justice since 1994, was one of 10 circuit court judge nominees thwarted by Democrats during Bush's first term by filibuster tactics that emerged as a topic in last year's election and a priority issue for GOP-allied conservative groups. She was nominated early in Bush's first term.
    Frist, after several years of warnings, this week threatened to impose new rules on the Senate to disallow the use of the filibuster on judicial nominations,. Democrats in turn threatened to disrupt the work of the Senate if they lost their right to keep talking unless 60 members voted to end debate.
    On Monday seven Republicans and seven Democrats helped prevent that meltdown with an agreement under which the minority's right to filibuster was retained but Democrats said they would use that right only in "extraordinary circumstances."
    The compromise also opened the way for votes on other long-stalled nominees, including William Pryor Jr. for the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and Janice Rogers Brown for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
    Senate leaders also announced Tuesday that they had agreed to take up the long-pending nominations of three Michigan judges.
    Frist characterized the Texas Supreme Court justice as "a gentle woman, an accomplished lawyer, and a brilliant jurist" who was "unconscionably denied an up-or-down vote" for four years.
    The GOP leader also expressed regret that the deal had sidetracked his attempt to permanently bar the minority from using the filibuster to block judicial nominations.
    Use of procedural delaying tactics to stop nominations was "a new and dangerous course" and "a power grab of unprecedented proportions," he said.
    Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said the Senate should put the filibuster dispute behind it and get back to work on other issues. "We should just move on," he said. "It's over with."
    It wasn't easy for Owen, 50, to get to this point. She was subjected to nine hours of hearings, answered more than 500 questions and endured 22 days of floor debate.
    With Owen, confirmed, Frist also planned to begin debate Wednesday on the nomination of John R. Bolton to be U.N. ambassador. Bolton, the outspoken conservative who has been accused of bullying subordinates and discounting intelligence data that contradicted his ideology, seemed likely to be confirmed by week's end.
    Owen on Tuesday visited the White House, where she told the president she would remember "that you expect judges to follow the law."
    "She is my friend, and more importantly, she's a great judge," Bush said.
    Lawmakers on both sides of the filibuster issue questioned whether the compromise would hold.
    "This is merely a truce, it is not a treaty yet," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, an advocate of restricting judicial filibusters. "An awful lot depends on good faith."
    Several Republican signers said the deal would survive only if Democrats abided by that vague condition. "The fact that you are a conservative is no longer an extraordinary circumstance," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
    Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, described Owen as an "exceptional jurist who is committed to the Constitution" and was widely admired across the state.
    But Reid said he was voting against her because of her "extreme ideological approach to the law." He said she consistently ruled in favor of big business and corporate interests and against consumers and workers.
    Owen was born in 1954 in Palacios, Texas, a small fishing and agriculture community on the Gulf Coast. Her father died of polio shortly before her first birthday.
    She earned a law degree from Baylor University in 1977, finishing at the top of her class and scoring highest among those taking the bar before entering private practice in Houston.
    She easily won election to the Texas Supreme Court in 1994 and re-election in 2000.
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R050526    'Cynical' deal
    "Judging by all of the self-congratulation, you'd think the 14 senators who reached a deal Monday on judicial nominations were the moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers," the Wall Street Journal says.
    " 'We have kept the Republic,' declared Democrat Robert Byrd, with all due modesty. 'The Senate won' and 'the country won,' added Republican John McCain. All 14 are apparently destined for Mount Rushmore, as soon as Mr. Byrd can stuff the money for the sculpture into an appropriations bill," the newspaper said in an editorial.
    "What a charade. This ballyhooed 'compromise' is all about saving the senators themselves, not the Constitution. Its main point is to shield the group of 14 from the consequences of having to cast difficult, public votes in a filibuster showdown. Thus they split the baby on the most pressing nominees, giving three of them a vote while rejecting two others on what seem to be entirely arbitrary grounds, so members of both parties can claim victory. Far better to cashier nominees as a bipartisan phalanx, rather than face up to their individual 'advice and consent' responsibilities.
    "Meanwhile, the statesmen and women are able to postpone any real fighting over the filibuster until the inevitable Supreme Court nomination later this Congress. We don't often agree with North Dakota Democrat Byron Dorgan, but he had it about right when he called the deal 'legislative castor oil. It averts the showdown vote tomorrow, but I doubt it's over.' All in all, we can't recall a more cynical Senate performance since the phony impeachment trial of Bill Clinton."
 
    'Republican Munich'
    "With the Republican Senate 24 hours away from liberating all seven judicial hostages of Minority Leader Harry Reid and his Democrats, Sen. John McCain stepped in to snatch compromise from the jaws of victory," Pat Buchanan writes.
    "We will, said McCain, settle for only three. McCain's Gang of Seven had just engineered a Republican Munich," Mr. Buchanan said in his syndicated column.
    "As of Monday, Majority Leader Bill Frist had the 51 votes needed to free all seven. Had a cloture vote been taken, all seven Bush appellate court appointees would soon be on their way to the federal bench. Reid's Democratic minority would have been stripped permanently of its power to abuse, delay and kill Bush judges and Supreme Court justices.
    "After months of painstaking work and press abuse, Republicans were on the precipice of a triumph. The McCain Seven stepped in -- to trade the horse for a rabbit.
    "Now, instead of Republicans winning all seven and disarming Reid, Ted Kennedy and Co. of their lethal weapon, Democrats agreed to release three hostages, but hold the other four -- and were given a GOP blessing to use their filibuster-veto in 'extraordinary circumstances,' i.e., should Bush name to the Supreme Court a jurist like William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas.
    "McCain is doing victory laps on the morning talk shows and assuring us, 'The country won.' But Dick Durbin and Reid are talking like men who just rubbed Republican noses in the dirt. 'The nuclear option is off the table,' said Sen. Durbin. Reid was especially gracious: 'Abuse of power will not be tolerated, and attempts to trample the Constitution and grab absolute control are over.'"
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R050526   Bush makes most of Senate deal
 

By Bill Sammon
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

President Bush, shrugging off complaints about Republican disunity, is making the most of the Senate's newfound comity by racing to enact his agenda before acrimony returns to Capitol Hill.
    The first item on Mr. Bush's stalled agenda to move forward since Monday's filibuster compromise in the Senate was his nomination of Justice Priscilla Owen, who was confirmed to a federal appeals court yesterday after a four-year delay.
    But even before the Senate finished voting 56-43 to confirm Justice Owen, the president was pivoting to other stalled agenda items, including his energy bill and his nomination of John R. Bolton to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
    Yesterday, Mr. Bush was asked whether he senses ?a new bipartisanship? that will result in the passage of more of his agenda.
    "We'll see," he allowed. "It's all going to be in the results. I'm a results-oriented person."
    But his spokesman, Scott McClellan, said those results are already tangible. He cited the expected confirmations of two additional judicial nominees, Janice Rogers Brown and William Pryor.
    "The Senate is moving forward on nominees who have waited for years to simply receive an up-or-down vote," said the White House press secretary. ?Now they are going to get one. That's real progress."
    Although several other judicial nominees are expected to be filibustered as a result of the Senate compromise — which the White House did not endorse — the deal also had the effect of keeping alive Mr. Bush's effort to reform Social Security.
    "Anything that gives the Senate more time to focus on Social Security is a good thing," presidential assistant Allan Hubbard told The Washington Times. "We want them to not lose focus on Social Security."
    The compromise, which averted a showdown that had threatened to paralyze the Senate, also cleared the way for the Bolton nomination to move forward. The full Senate began debate on the nomination yesterday and planned to vote tonight, although some Democrats threatened a delay.
    Before Monday's compromise, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, had begun to curtail Senate business in anticipation of a showdown with Republicans. Now that the showdown has been averted, the Senate is free to move forward on such issues as the president's long-delayed energy bill.
    "And so we're working with the senators," Mr. Bush said yesterday. "Congress has been talking too long about the energy bill. And now is the time to get it to my desk."
    Passage of the energy bill would be a major victory for the White House, which bragged yesterday of already enacting major items on the president's second-term agenda. These include tort reform, bankruptcy reform, a budget resolution and supplemental funding for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
    "We have made significant progress in the first four months or so of this Congress," Mr. McClellan said.
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L050526   Senators ask Bush to OK stem-cell bill
 

By Brian DeBoseand Joseph Curl
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

A bipartisan group of senators yesterday urged President Bush to reconsider his position on embryonic-stem-cell research and rescind his threat to veto a bill that would expand federal funding for such research.
    "The bill passed the House by a big margin, and I think if publicized further, that margin will grow to override a veto," said Sen. Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican. "Last year, we had a letter signed by about 58 senators and about 20 more in the wings, so I think if it really comes down to a showdown we will have enough votes in the Senate to override a veto."
    The House passed a bill Tuesday to ease restrictions on federal funding for research using stem cells taken from human embryos, 238-194. But 50 more votes are needed to buck a presidential veto.
    The bill -- co-sponsored by Reps. Michael N. Castle, Delaware Republican, and Diana DeGette, Colorado Democrat -- calls for nearly 400,000 human embryos currently in cold storage to be used in government-funded experimentation. The proposal also creates a national inventory for stem cells derived from umbilical-cord blood, reauthorizes the national bone-marrow registry and codifies a number of ethical standards for embryonic-stem-cell use.
    Mr. Specter was joined in a press conference yesterday by Republican Sens. Orrin G. Hatch of Utah and Gordon H. Smith of Oregon, as well as Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California, Tom Harkin of Iowa and Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts.
    Mr. Bush responded to the senators' statements later in the day.
    "I have made my position very clear on that issue. I believe that the use of federal monies that end up destroying life ... is not positive, is not good. And so, therefore, I'm against the extension of the research, of using more federal dollars on new embryonic-stem-cell lines," Mr. Bush said.
    Mr. Specter said the president's argument is "factually incorrect."
    "Embryonic stem cells are not being destroyed to save lives. Embryonic stem cells will be destroyed whether they are used to save lives or not," he said.
    It is a "plain fact," Mr. Hatch said, that thousands of unused embryos, produced for in vitro fertilization treatments are discarded each year. He said associating such research with abortion is a flawed argument.
    "Human life does not begin in a petri dish, and I know there is room to be anti-abortion and pro-embryonic-stem-cell research," he said.
    Mr. Hatch noted that Congress ran into similar opposition more than 20 years ago when it legalized in vitro fertilization, then a new procedure condemned by many pro-life activists.
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O050526   Hillary aide denies hiding funds

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The former national finance director for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton testified yesterday that he may have used bad judgment when he failed to report that a campaign donor paid his $10,000 Beverly Hills hotel bill and let him use a Porsche.
    But David Rosen said he never tried to hide anything.
    Mr. Rosen is charged with making false statements to the Federal Election Commission, which oversees campaign contributions. The defense rested after he testified, and closing statements were expected to conclude yesterday.
    Federal prosecutors say Mr. Rosen deliberately lied to regulators by claiming that ?in-kind? contributions for a lavish Hollywood fundraiser that he helped organize totaled $401,000. They say Mr. Rosen knew that the contributions were worth more than $1.1 million, but he says he relied on other people to document the costs.
    Prosecutors say Mr. Rosen was trying to duck federal financing rules so Mrs. Clinton's campaign would have more money to spend on her 2000 U.S. Senate race, but they have said the New York Democrat was unaware of any wrongdoing.
    The hotel cost and use of the Porsche were provided by Aaron Tonken, another organizer of the fundraiser who is serving a 63-month prison sentence on separate charges of defrauding charities of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
    Mr. Rosen, 38, testified that he thought the use of the Porsche was a personal gift.
    ?I didn't think there was any campaign expense,? he said. ?If I executed poor judgment in that decision, I made a mistake, but I certainly didn't intend to hide anything.?
    The August 2000 dinner and concert, held at a 112-acre Brentwood estate, attracted celebrities including Cher, Diana Ross and Muhammad Ali.
    Mr. Rosen said he relied on an outside group run by Tonken and businessman Peter Paul that was organizing the event to calculate and document the costs. The figures then were reported to the federal government, he said.
    Paul, a three-time convicted felon, pleaded guilty in March to securities fraud in a separate case.
    Under cross-examination by prosecutor Peter Zeidenberg, Mr. Rosen was asked repeatedly whether he had known or looked into details of the gala's expenses. Mr. Rosen said that he had not and that he thought many items simply were included in larger categories.
    Each of the two counts against Mr. Rosen carries a five-year prison sentence and a $250,000 fine.
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R050526   Senate confirms Owen to federal appeals bench
 

By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen was confirmed to a federal appeals court seat yesterday as Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist declared victory and reminded Democrats that if they "abuse" the judicial filibuster again, he will employ the so-called "nuclear option."
    "I am now hopeful, but wary," Mr. Frist said of the truce reached Monday night, just hours before he planned to eliminate the judicial filibuster with what he calls the "constitutional option."
    "If nominees receive up-or-down votes and the sword of the filibuster is sheathed, then the Republican leadership can be proud that its focused direction on the constitutional option arrested a dangerous and destructive trend," Mr. Frist said. "If filibusters again erupt under circumstances other than extraordinary, we will put the constitutional option back on the table and move to implement it."
    Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, later told reporters he was "very disappointed" to hear Mr. Frist's warning.
    "We've got to move on," he said. "The nuclear option is over."
    Yesterday's 55-43 vote to confirm Justice Owen to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ended a four-year drama that some said threatened to "blow up" the Senate. Democrats and outside liberal groups described her as an anti-woman judicial activist.
    "Priscilla Owen has voted against a woman's right to choose in every abortion-related opinion," said Eleanor Smeal, president of Feminist Majority Foundation.
    In particular, liberals oppose Justice Owen for declining in several cases to allow juveniles to bypass the Texas law requiring that minors notify their parents before undergoing an abortion.
    Yesterday's vote was largely a party-line vote. Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island was the only Republican to oppose her.
    Two surprising votes came from Democratic Sens. Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia and Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana. After voting four times since May 2003 to deny Justice Owen a final confirmation vote, they agreed to give her a vote and then voted in support of her nomination.
    "I voted four times previously not to invoke cloture on Priscilla Owen, because I respected the right of the Senate to hear further debate," Mr. Byrd said before the vote. "Having examined these aspects [of her philosophy], as well as her prior record as a justice on the Texas Supreme Court, I shall vote in support of her nomination."
    He also specifically addressed the concerns of some in his party about her abortion rulings.
    "I know that some critics assail Justice Owen's belief that, in certain circumstances, minors should be required to notify their parents prior to obtaining an abortion," he said. "However, I cannot help but believe that in many, but perhaps not all, cases, young women would do well to seek guidance from their parents or legal guardians, who would have their best interests at heart when these young women are confronted with making such a difficult decision."
    One "no" vote came from Sen. Ken Salazar, Colorado Democrat, who campaigned last year on a promise to oppose the Democratic filibusters against Mr. Bush's judicial nominees.
    Mr. Salazar was among the 14 who crafted the deal to preserve the filibuster but appeared torn as to how he would vote on the final confirmation of Justice Owen.
    Sandwiched between Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer of California and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan in the well of the Senate, Mr. Salazar several times moved his right hand to indicate his vote before letting it drop to his side as one of the women whispered in his ear.
    Finally, Mr. Salazar raised his right hand and cast his vote against Justice Owen.
    Mr. Frist said that while he was pleased the compromise allowed a vote on Justice Owen, he noted it would not have come if he hadn't been willing to take the extraordinary measure of banning judicial filibusters.
    "Without the constitutional option, Priscilla Owen would never have come to a vote," he said. "Without the constitutional option, judicial filibusters would have become a standard instrument of minority party policy."
 
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O050527   Coburn revives show on STD for Hill aides
 

By Cheryl Wetzstein
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Sen. Tom Coburn yesterday continued a tradition he started when he was a member of the House of Representatives -- treating Capitol Hill staffers to lunch and a slide show about the ravages of sexual disease.
    'This is going to be pretty graphic, and I don't want anybody to be surprised,' the Oklahoma Republican said as he began the noon presentation at the Capitol.
    But either times have changed or Hill staffers are more jaded because no one gasped or ran for the exits, unlike previous years.
    Mr. Coburn, a family physician, later said he doesn't do the slide show for shock value but sees it as a way to get medical facts to young people.
    'They don't get enough information,' he said. Most new cases of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) occur among people younger than 25, and if people know the science, they can modify their behavior, he said.
    The event yesterday was billed as a Star Wars-style 'Revenge of the STDs.' Fliers pictured a Yoda figure crying, 'Stop the STDs, we must,' and Darth Vader warning, 'Never underestimate the power of the STDs.' Star Wars music greeted the guests.
    However, the slide show evoked less emotion than a previous show. The crowd was quiet and the mostly polite inquiries allowed the freshman senator to elaborate on topics such as spermicides and ectopic pregnancy.
    In contrast, at a 1997 slide show, the audience groaned at certain images and some female staffers fled. Also, the questions were feistier, with participants challenging the idea of lifelong monogamy, especially for homosexuals.
    Yesterday, as he has done before, Mr. Coburn advised adults to refrain from having multiple sexual partners and engaging in unsafe sexual activity.
    'What would happen in this country if the young women would say no [to sex] until they're 20?' he asked. 'Disease would go down, the pregnancy rate for unwed mothers would go down, the social costs for the next two generations would go down.'
    Mr. Coburn also encouraged sexually active youth to use condoms.
    'Condoms make a difference,' he said, cataloging the effectiveness of condoms in protecting against fluid-borne STDs such as HIV/AIDS and gonorrhea.
    The problem is that condoms don't offer much prevention against several other diseases, such as herpes, human papillomavirus and syphilis, that are transmitted by skin contact, he said.
    Proponents of comprehensive sex education later applauded Mr. Coburn's advice on condoms but objected to his use of STD 'scare tactics' and questionable data.
    'Everyone in that room should consider getting a second opinion,' said Bill Smith, public policy director for the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States.
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M050527   'No credible evidence' on Koran story

From combined dispatches
    U.S. officials have found "no credible evidence" for a terrorism suspect's charge that the Koran was flushed down a toilet, and the prison's commander said yesterday the inmate himself said he never saw any desecrations of Islam's holy book.
    Brig. Gen. Jay W. Hood said at a Pentagon news conference that the Guantanamo Bay prisoner was asked in a May 14 interview whether he had seen the Koran "defiled, desecrated or mishandled."
    The prisoner had said in a July 22, 2002, interrogation by an FBI agent, a partly redacted summary of which was made public this week, that a military guard threw the Koran into a to