National Journal articles from March 2000

National Journal archives from March 2000

Letters.
March 4, 2000... GLUB, GLUB. SOME SUB. I applaud George C. Wilson's effort to stimulate debate on the future of our armed forces ["Spend Now, Ask Questions Later," 2/5/2000, p. 414]. He asks some excellent hardball questions, and I'd like to respond to two...

SHOULD THE FEDS PROSECUTE THE COPS WHO KILLED DIALLO?
March 4, 2000... The victim was black and unarmed; his assailants, four white cops. The publicity was intense. Public outrage was boiling. The state courts moved the trial out of the racially divided city, where convictions seemed likely, to a quieter, whiter...

IN CALIFORNIA, CAMPAIGN FINANCE MEETS THE UN-MCCAIN.
March 4, 2000... Last August, I got a phone call from the man who, on Tuesday, may change California politics. He introduced himself as Ron Unz and wondered: Could he come over and tell me about Proposition 25, his upcoming California campaign finance reform...

Best Seats in the House.
March 4, 2000... SENIOR HOUSE REPUBLICANS ARE WAGING FIERCE AND POTENTIALLY DISRUPTIVE BATTLES FOR PRIZED COMMITTEE CHAIRMANSHIPS. Rep. Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, has had a high profile lately. Last fall, on an assignment from House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert,...

Global Food Fight.
March 4, 2000... AS CONSUMER FEAR OF GENETICALLY ALTERED FOOD RISES, SUPPORTERS PUSH FOR INTERNATIONAL ACCEPTANCE. Pity the poor American farmer trying to decide what kind of seed to plant this spring. For the past four years, farmers have been the target...

The Parent Trap.
March 4, 2000... OVERSEAS ADOPTIONS POSE DIPLOMATIC AND PERSONAL DILEMMAS FOR PARENTS AND FOR CONGRESS. After trying for many years to have a second child, an Ohio couple decided to adopt one from another country. They researched adoption procedures and...

CONGRESSIONAL DRUG RUNS.
March 4, 2000... Rep. Deborah Ann Stabenow, D-Mich., is running for the Senate. She's also running bus trips to Canada. Stabenow and other congressional Democrats have taken to escorting gray-haired constituents to Canada or Mexico to buy prescription medicines...

A LITTLE PRIVACY, PLEASE.
March 4, 2000... For years, the public's worries about privacy violations have been "a mile wide but an inch deep," say advocates of additional protections for financial and other personal information. The issue has never decided an election and has staved...

PIVOTAL EVENTS IN CONGRESS.
March 4, 2000... FEBRUARY 28-MARCH 2 House United on Social Security Earnings By a unanimous 422-0 vote, the House on March 1 passed legislation to repeal the federal requirement that senior citizens age 65 to 69 give up a portion of their Social...

HOUSE-SENATE COMMITTEE ACTION.
March 4, 2000... FEBRUARY 28-MARCH 2 * Hot Bills Here is the status of major legislation on the congressional front burner: PATIENTS' RIGHTS House: Approved a bipartisan patients' rights and insurance access bill (H.R. 2990) last October,...

Hill People.
March 4, 2000... Senate The National Federation of Independent Business has lured two young Capitol Hill staffers to its lobbying operation. James Y. Hirni and Mary Ellen Bahret, both 27, will lobby the Senate for the small-business advocacy group--Hirni...

THE TRIALS OF JIM ROGAN.
March 4, 2000... So you think the politics of impeachment will have little impact on Election Day? Not so fast. Just ask Rep. James E. Rogan, R-Calif. You may recall Rogan from his role as a House manager in the Senate impeachment trial of President Clinton...

People.
March 4, 2000... In the Tanks Behind-the-scenes operator Veronique Rodman is off to the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, where she's the new director of public affairs. Rodman, 50, is an American citizen who was born in Cairo,...

SEEKING JUSTICE IN ROADS AND RUNWAYS.
March 4, 2000... Residents of Boston know how to put up a good fight. The city, after all, was home to the Boston Massacre in 1770 and the Boston Tea Party in 1773, two acts of defiance that helped spark an armed revolution. The city was also the scene of...

COUNSEL FOR A MENAGERIE OF CLIENTS.
March 4, 2000... In April 1991, Washington lawyers Eric Glitzenstein and Kathy Meyer were headed home after a vacation in Arizona's Grand Canyon National Park. During a stopover at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, the couple received an urgent telephone...

FROM THE K STREET CORRIDOR.
March 4, 2000... Time to Say Goodbye After going through more name changes than the Washington Wizards and exhibiting even less team chemistry, the Washington law and lobbying firm of Wunder, Knight, Forscey & DeVierno has disbanded. "Call it our 19th...

SMALL AGENCY, BIG TARGET.
March 4, 2000... The tiny Inter-American Foundation is a strange beast in the jungle of other federal agencies. This small and little-known grass-roots economic development organization for Latin America and the Caribbean is like a small, private nonprofit...

A CHAIRMAN PUSHES UNMANNED WARFARE.
March 4, 2000... The usually cautious chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, John W. Warner, has come up with a daring idea for Congress: Order the Air Force and the Army to buy planes and tanks that don't need human crews. Air Force leaders say...

NOW HERE'S A HOT SEAT.
March 4, 2000... Only a half year into his job, Pascal Lamy, the European Union's commissioner for trade, is already the pivotal player in the three most critical dramas on the global trade scene today. Only Lamy can reverse mounting U.S.-EU tensions over...

MCCAIN'S CONTROVERSIAL CALCULUS.
March 4, 2000... It's possible that Sen. John McCain's broadside against the Religions Right may ignite his drive for the Republican presidential nomination as the campaign heads into the March 7 round of primaries. But GOP strategists fear his attack is...

A Big Week for Raising Bucks.
March 4, 2000... Washington fund-raisers had plenty to smile about this week as Democratic and Republican bashes produced some impressive hauls. On Feb 28, the annual Republican Governors Association dinner grossed about $6 million, a record. Since the...

WHY BAUER IS WITH MCCAIN.
March 4, 2000... If Sen. John McCain of Arizona was the biggest victim of his presidential campaign's risky decision to attack two founding fathers of the Religious Right, the second biggest may have been one of McCain's chief defenders--former GOP candidate...

CALIFORNIA'S REPUBLICANS: THEIR OWN BREED.
March 4, 2000... Lee Ann Englund, who works part time in the services division of the Walnut Creek Police Department outside San Francisco, is a lifelong Republican but voted for Democrat Gray Davis in the 1998 gubernatorial race, largely because his Republican...

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE PEROT PLACE ...
March 4, 2000... If Sen. John McCain of Arizona goes on to win the Republican presidential nomination, a GOP-Reform Part), fusion ticket is not in the cards, said Pat Choate, who succeeded Jack Gargan as the Reform Party 5 interim chairman at a raucous...

DISSING THE RIGHT IS RISKY BUSINESS.
March 4, 2000... Texas Gov. George W. Bush's victories on Tuesday in North Dakota, Virginia, and Washington helped him enormously, but his big challenge, March 7, still lies ahead. His first test next week will be to hold down his losses in the Northeast. Sen....

Verbatim.
March 4, 2000... Excerpts from a Feb. 28 speech by Sen. John McCain at Frank W. Cox High School in Virginia Beach, Va. John McCain: Throughout my presidential campaign, I have remained true to our conservative principles. It is conservative to pay down the...

At the Races.
March 4, 2000... A weekly review of Campaign 2000 * Media Watch Don't look to the nightly network news shows for what the presidential candidates are saying on the campaign trail. According to a study by the Alliance for Better Campaigns, the network...

`Texas Pollution'.
March 4, 2000... Sierra Club Produced by Haddow Communications 30 seconds It's getting hot in California, one of the states with the most delegates up for grabs on March 7. Amid all the various issue and candidate ads running in the Golden State, the Sierra...

Hotline Extra.
March 4, 2000... McCain's Moment Sen. John McCain's speech denouncing Christian conservative leaders Pat Robertson and Jerry, Falwell led the ABC, CBS, and NBC evening news broadcasts and generated plenty of reaction. In addition to calling Robertson and...

A GUSHER OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES.
March 4, 2000... LOS ANGELES--On the eve of Super Tuesday, when the idiocy of bunching 15 delegate-selecting state primaries and caucuses is about to yield its unpredictable results, some unintended consequences of the whole chaotic process of front-loading are...

Poll Track.
March 4, 2000... Views on policy and politics * Issue Spotlight A WIDENING GULF? The trial and subsequent acquittal of four New York City, police officers in the shooting death of Amadou Diallo has generated more questions on the state of race...

THE CALIFORNIA GOP WANTS A WINNER.
March 4, 2000... LOS ANGELES--It's looking like the nominating contests could all come down to California, just as they used to. Only the California primary used to be in June. This year it's in March, on the first day of the "official" presidential primary...

China Trade Vote Emerges As Key Test For Clinton, 106th Congress.
March 4, 2000... WITH A VOTE expected this summer on permanent normal trade relations for China, President Clinton is poised to spend his last year in office just as he did his first -- struggling to win support for a historically significant and politically...

Beyond China Debate Lies A World Of Trade Issues.
March 4, 2000... * WITH CHINA DOMINATING the trade landscape this year, Congress is likely to make a number of incremental, although important, steps in other trade areas -- and to leave several major initiatives to future Congresses. After several failed...

Congress Takes The Long Road On Managed Care Reform.
March 4, 2000... IT HAS TAKEN MORE than four months since the House became the second chamber to pass legislation regulating the practices of managed care plans to organize the first House-Senate conference meeting. In microcosm, that represents the travails of...

Patients' Rights: The Debate So Far ...
March 4, 2000... 1994: June 15: Sens. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., and Conrad Burns, R-Mont., introduce the first Patient Protection Act, strongly supported by the American Medical Association. 1996: Sept.: As part of the FY97 VAHUD appropriations bill,...

Medical Error Debate Raises Plethora Of Issues In Congress.
March 4, 2000... LAST NOVEMBER, after the Institute of Medicine shocked Washington with the news that as many as 98,000 Americans die each year due to medical errors, there was little doubt that Congress would rush to legislate. What member of Congress could...

New Medical Privacy Rules Could Spur Congress To Address Issue.
March 4, 2000... ONE THING -- maybe the only thing just about everyone involved in the medical records confidentiality debate agrees upon is that it is one of the most difficult issues they have ever dealt with. Actually they also agree on one other thing...

Hurdles Remain On Prescription Drugs Despite Bipartisan Interest.
March 4, 2000... * FOR ALL THE TALK ABOUT CREATING a prescription drug benefit for Medicare, major differences about who should get a benefit -- and how much government involvement should be allowed -- could make it hard for Congress to pass a bill this year....

Minimum Wage Debate Highlights A Busy Agenda On Labor Issues.
March 4, 2000... TWO HIGH PROFILE workplace issues --an increase in the minimum wage and possible pension reforms -- are gathering momentum this year, but it is unclear whether comprehensive legislation will pass in this short legislative session. However,...

Despite Rhetoric, Soc. Sec. Reform Likely To Wait Another Year.
March 4, 2000... * LIKE THE WEATHER, Social Security reform generates lots of talk but little action. That has been the scenario for the past two years, as virtually everyone says something should be done -- but no one can agree on what to do. That is also the...

GOP Begins Uphill Climb On Tax Cuts With `Marriage Penalty' Vote.
March 4, 2000... DESPITE THEIR MIXED success during the past few years, congressional Republicans are starting the year intent on cutting taxes. In fact, one of the first orders of business in the House was legislation to eliminate the so-called marriage...

No Easy Task To Untangle Wires On Electricity Deregulation.
March 4, 2000... TO GET AN IDEA OF the complexity of the issues and politics accompanying legislation to revamp the retail electricity marketplace, consider the plight of the nation's 1,000 rural electric cooperatives. Cooperatives, which electrified much...

Environment Agenda Appears Largely Stalled This Election Year.
March 4, 2000... THE SENATE'S failure Feb. 10 to pass a nuclear waste storage bill with a veto-proof majority may turn out to be the most significant action on environmental legislation this year. With the White House and congressional leadership battling...

Congress Ready To Debate Oversight Of Futures Exchanges.
March 4, 2000... REAUTHORIZATION OF the Commodity Exchange Act, which expires Sept. 30, has set the stage for vigorous congressional and industry debate this year over the proper regulatory treatment of the futures exchanges and their powerful rivals in the...

Securities Laws Due For Fine-Tuning.
March 4, 2000... TECHNICAL legislation to overhaul aspects of the nation's securities laws is expected to be on tap for consideration this year by the committees of jurisdiction, which chiefly include the Senate Banking and House Commerce panels. Senate...

Agenda Is Limited On Tort, Reg Reform.
March 4, 2000... THIS TIME LAST YEAR, Republicans and Democrats alike in the House and Senate Judiciary committees faced the specter of lingering bitterness following President Clinton's impeachment trial -- frustrating efforts for bipartisan legislation. But a...

Congress Shines A Spotlight On Difficult Computer Privacy Debate.
March 4, 2000... THE PRIVACY OF personal information may become one of the key political issues of the new century, as the once arcane debate over the rules governing computerized data already has exploded on Capitol Hill. Still, the prospects for privacy...

Both Parties Anxious To Address High Tech Industry's Agenda.
March 4, 2000... ONE WEDNESDAY morning in early February, almost a dozen Republican senators left the Capitol for the National Republican Senatorial Committee headquarters -- and spent 90 minutes with approximately 50 high tech lobbyists, discussing what the...

Key `Broadband' Issues Likely On Hold Until Next Congress.
March 4, 2000... IN LATE 1998, America Online Chairman and CEO Stephen Case predicted that the policy decisions made on Capitol Hill over the next five years would have more impact on the growth of the Internet than the strategies of the companies themselves....

Clinton Armors Democrats With Rising Budget For Defense.
March 4, 2000... IN SENDING Congress a steadily rising five-year military budget, President Clinton has attempted to undercut Republican efforts to make the Democrats look weak on defense this election year. But the budget plan also sets the stage for a guns...

Medical Care Emerges As Top Issue For Active, Retired Military.
March 4, 2000... * LAST YEAR, Congress met and raised a Clinton administration proposal to increase military pay and pensions. This year on the military personnel front, the top target is health benefits. Active duty troops are frustrated by the...

Spare Parts Shortages Lurk As Pentagon's Hidden Enemy.
March 4, 2000... LIKE THE FAIRY TALE dragon with a missing scale on its soft underside, America's awesome military machine has a surprisingly mundane weakness: spare parts. The downside of superior technology is the need to keep the wonder weapons working....

True Merit Pay.
March 11, 2000... National Board certification is a clear standard of teaching excellence. The coming teacher shortage is bringing renewed attention to the importance of excellent teaching. Some good ideas for attracting and keeping high-quality teachers...

IT'S TIME TO WORRY WHEN THE MEDIA BECOME CENSORS.
March 11, 2000... When big companies threaten lawsuits to suppress the timely reporting of newsworthy information, media organizations often rush to the barricades waving the First Amendment as their banner. Not so now, when it is a group of media...

WHY DOES THE ECONOMY ALWAYS VOTE DEMOCRATIC IN NOVEMBER?
March 11, 2000... Republicans have to face a depressing fact: The American economy is implacably opposed to any kind of George Bush for President. It dug its heels in during 1991-92, feigning weakness for months so that President Bush would be denied his second...

Net Dreams.
March 11, 2000... IT WILL TAKE MORE THAN COMPUTERS AND INTERNET MODEMS IN THE CLASSROOM TO NARROW THE DIGITAL DIVIDE BETWEEN TECHNOLOGY HAVES AND HAVE-NOTS. BUT GOVERNMENT AND BUSINESS HAVE MADE A START. The Senators in suits, huddled in the auditorium at...

The Power of the Pardon.
March 11, 2000... On Feb. 21, President Clinton availed himself of one of the noblest perks of his office: the ability to serve the cause of justice or mercy or simply the national interest by granting a pardon to a person convicted of a crime in American...

On To November.
March 11, 2000... BOTH AL GORE AND GEORGE W. BUSH HAD WEAKNESSES EXPOSED IN THE PRIMARIES THE WINNER WILL BE THE ONE OVERCOMES THEM. As the Super Tuesday returns were rolling in, aides to Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore were already...

THE BIG CHILL.
March 11, 2000... Here they go again. In early February, congressional Republicans rejected President Clinton's fiscal 2001 budget proposal as too fat. They then pledged an early start--and an early conclusion--on their own budget work so everyone could go home...

PIVOTAL EVENTS IN CONGRESS.
March 11, 2000... MARCH 6-9 Clinton Pushes China Trade, Gun Bills President Clinton on March 8 sent Congress his proposal to grant China permanent normal trade-relations status, not a minute too soon for free-trading lawmakers. Senior Senators emerged...

HOUSE-SENATE COMMITTEE ACTION.
March 11, 2000... MARCH 6-9 * OVERVIEW A Senate committee dished up some television news for rural residents, President Clinton's education initiatives got a ruler on the knuckles, and property-rights advocates prepared to send local zoning issues to...

Hot Bills.
March 11, 2000... Here is the status of major legislation on the congressional front burner: PATIENTS' RIGHTS House: Approved a bipartisan patients' rights bill (H.R. 2723) on Oct. 7, 1999, 275-151, then merged it with an insurance access bill (H.R....

Hill People.
March 11, 2000... House After a six-year apprenticeship on Capitol Hill, John S. Hill, 29, a legislative assistant to Rep. Jim Davis, D-Fla., has become the director of legislative affairs for the Duberstein Group, a lobbying firm. Hill, who spent three...

THE MUTINOUS MIDDLE.
March 11, 2000... SENATE DEMOCRATIC CENTRISTS ARE CHALLENGING THE LIBERALS Call it a battle for the soul of the Democratic Party. This conflict, which is under way in the Senate, has received scant attention because it's been overshadowed this year by the...

TURNING UP THE HEAT.
March 11, 2000... "You know, every significant reform in a controversial area is considered to be impossible when you start. But you just start, and you keep working and you keep working and you keep working and eventually it happens." --President Clinton,...

People.
March 11, 2000... Interest Groups "We rolled out a 14-foot Trojan horse to the Capitol. Huge. Out of papier-mache," recalled Patrick C. Burns, the former communications director for the National Council of Senior Citizens. Burns masterminded that Trojan...

A CALL TO ARMS FOR TAIWAN.
March 11, 2000... As Taiwan last month stepped up the pressure to convince Washington that the island needs new, defensive weapons, a high-powered lobbying shop helped launch a congressional missive to the White House backing the arms sale. In a toughly...

From the K Street Corridor.
March 11, 2000... Biotech's Monster Ad Campaign Facing greater public scrutiny and increased federal oversight, a coalition of seven companies with big stakes in biotechnology is planning a three- to five-year advertising and information campaign that is...

K STREET: ANOTHER WIN FOR GORE.
March 11, 2000... In their March 2 debate, Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain of Arizona splattered each other with mud over campaign finance reform. Bush scoffed that although McCain has criticized Washington's "iron triangle" of special interests,...

TO OPEN THE DOORs, BEAT THE CLOCK.
March 11, 2000... With the economy hot and the labor market tight, strange alliances are looming on the immigration-lobbying front. Employers, who are increasingly concerned about the availability and the legality of needed workers, now find themselves on the...

GAY PARTNERS IN SEARCH OF GREEN CARDS.
March 11, 2000... When Jacque Larrainzar, at age 19, told her family that she was a lesbian, her father tried to strangle her and threw her immediately out of their Mexico City home. But there was worse to come. Young Larrainzar was working for a Mexican...

THE END OF THE AFFAIR.
March 11, 2000... MEDIA The orgy is officially over, and we media types are putting our clothes back on and avoiding eye contact. The morning after is always awkward. "Good manners and bad breath," as Elvis Costello once put it. But let's not feel so...

IT WON'T BE PRETTY.
March 11, 2000... THE PUSH FOR A TRADE DEAL WITH CHINA BRINGS A SURGE OF DOWN-AND-DIRTY POLITICKING. Step right up, ladies and gentlemen. The trade bazaar is about to open. Innocents, cover your eyes. The Clinton Administration's decision to send...

Hotline Extra.
March 11, 2000... Right Back Where We Started From Call it Super Tuesday, Fat Tuesday, whatever. The punditocracy was unanimous in the hours that followed in assessing the meanings of the results. As the USA Today headline put it, "Insurgents' days seem to...

Verbatim.
March 11, 2000... Excepts from Al Gore's Super Tuesday victory speech at his headquarters in Nashville, Tenn. Al Gore: My friends, they don't call it Super Tuesday for nothing. We stand at a mountaintop moment in our history, the longest period of economic...

At the Races.
March 11, 2000... A weekly of Campaign 2000 * Numbers Game Vice President Al Gore and Gov. George W. Bush weren't running against each other on Super Tuesday, but they did run in the same states. Here's how their vote totals compare: ...

HOW THE RACES FOR GOVERNOR LOOK NOW.
March 11, 2000... Although only 11 governorships are up for grabs this year, at least six of the races are hotly contested. Each party has three races that are too close to call: the Democrats' open seats in Delaware, Missouri, and North Carolina; and the...

AND FOR THE LOSERS ...
March 11, 2000... Super Tuesday's results decisively raised questions about the future of campaign finance reform, a podium-pounding issue for the day's ballot-box losers, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and former Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J. Each stoutly pledged that...

Poll Track.
March 11, 2000... * Seals of Approval CLINTON MATCHES HIS PERSONAL BEST With the economy rolling along and unemployment remaining low, President Clinton's job-approval rating (65 percent positive, 34 percent negative), tied his record high in a recent...

A NOT-SO-SUPER TUESDAY FOR THE GOP.
March 11, 2000... The race between Bill Bradley and Al Gore was good for the Democrats. The contest between John McCain and George W. Bush was bad for the GOP. Bad luck for Bush: His opposition came from the center and pushed him to the right. Good luck for...

Letters.
March 18, 2000... FETAL-TISSUE RESEARCH I read with astonishment the article titled "The Fetal-Tissue Frontier" by Neil Munro [2/26/2000, p. 616]. The article implies that scientists and people suffering from incurable diseases are too eager for cures and...

HOW JEB BUSH SUDDENLY BECAME BULL CONNOR.
March 18, 2000... It was perhaps the biggest mass protest in Florida's history, with 10,000 demonstrators converging on the Capitol in Tallahassee on March 7. Some placards called Florida Gov. Jeb Bush "Jeb Crow." Others said, "Pharaoh Bush, let my people go!" A...

BUSH AND GORE: PERFECT WINNERS OF A PERFECT RACE. ALMOST.
March 18, 2000... "I can't imagine a worse process, can you? Three more months of meaningless primaries! Eight months until the general election! It all drags on and on and costs so much, and what's the point? The candid candidates are out; the real winners...