National Journal articles from September 2000

National Journal archives from September 2000

CORRECTION.
September 2, 2000... Jonathan Rauch's column on Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash. (NJ, 8/12/00, p. 2579), reported that after his election in 1994, Nethercutt filed with the House clerk a resignation letter effective after three terms. In fact, the letter was filed...

Energy in retro-perspective.(Brief Article)
September 2, 2000... This year many Americans have been affected by rising energy prices. One result has been renewed attention to U.S. energy policy. Energy policy is important to each of us because energy underpins our economy and helps drive economic growth....

Facts and fundamentals.(Brief Article)
September 2, 2000... Recent energy price volatility has had an impact on almost every American family and has highlighted the importance of energy policies. We previously offered a perspective on energy policy in recent decades, and the beneficial effects of...

GORE-LIEBERMAN: RACIAL PREFERENCES FOREVER?
September 2, 2000... Here's what Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, D-Conn., said in 1995 about group preferences and affirmative action: "You can't defend policies that are based on group preferences as opposed to individual opportunities, which is what America has...

VISION WITHOUT CONSEQUENCES: GORE'S WINNING PLATFORM?
September 2, 2000... Going into this election, Al Gore should be unstoppable. As far as the economy is concerned, so long as there are no upsets on Wall Street for the next few months, it just doesn't get any better than this: unprecedented growth, low inflation,...

Privacy's Price.
September 2, 2000... AS THE TECHNOLOGY EXPLOSION FUELS THE DEBATE ON PRIVACY, POLICYMAKERS STRUGGLE TO KEEP PROFITS AND PROTECTIONS IN BALANCE. You're driving down the freeway, listening to your car radio and singing along to some silly song from the 1970s such...

Banking: WHOSE INFORMATION IS IT, ANYWAY?(Brief Article)
September 2, 2000... When Congress passed sweeping legislation last year that allows banks to affiliate with insurance companies and brokerages, customer financial data became a hot commodity, and the heat ignited new concerns about the privacy of consumers who use...

Government: CASTING THE WIDEST NET.
September 2, 2000... The federal government has long been the most pervasive collector of Americans' sensitive personal information. The 1974 Privacy Act, passed in the wake of the Nixon White House's release of individual Internal Revenue Service and FBI records,...

E-Commerce: GROWING CONCERN IN CYBERSPACE.
September 2, 2000... If you've ever bought a book at Amazon.com, you know that each time you go back to the site you are greeted by name and given the titles of other books you might like, based on your past purchases. It's convenient, but to some it's also a...

Medicine: THE MOST-PERSONAL DATA.
September 2, 2000... When doctors still made house calls and some patients bartered for their care with chickens or pies, people didn't worry much about their medical secrets becoming common knowledge. But these days, cost-conscious managed care health plans,...

Law Enforcement: THE CARNIVORE QUESTION.
September 2, 2000... A Wall Street Journal story in July publicized the existence of the FBI's Carnivore e-mail surveillance system. The ensuing debate over Carnivore and its use--and possible misuse--forced a basic question to the surface: Do law enforcement's...

WHAT'S YOUR PRIVACY WORTH?
September 2, 2000... The effort to strike a balance between privacy and economic efficiency lies at the heart of the current debate over protections for personal information on the Internet and in sectors such as banking, medicine, and law enforcement. But lost...

TRYING TO RIGHT A CENTURY OF WRONGS.
September 2, 2000... A little more than a century ago, Congress set up a system of private land ownership for Native Americans, hoping, in the words of then-Rep. Henry Dawes, R-Mass., to "civilize" Indians and encourage them to "cultivate the ground, live in...

THE JORDAN DIFFERENCE.
September 2, 2000... The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan sits on a forbidding tract of high desert plateau too barren for agriculture and lacks any natural resources other than the phosphate rocks that are pulled from the earth and carried to greener lands to make...

IN HOLBROOKE'S VIEW, `WE HAVE A STAKE'.(Interview)
September 2, 2000... In what is billed as the largest gathering of heads of state in modern history, the leaders of more than 100 governments will meet for a Millennium Summit at U.N. headquarters in New York City from Sept. 6-8. A new U.N. report on peacekeeping...

THE GREEN TEAM BACKING AL GORE.
September 2, 2000... Five years ago, the Sierra Club was the political equivalent of the 95-pound weakling. The San Francisco-based environmental group had little influence on Capitol Hill, where the new Republican majority in Congress was attacking the nation's...

A BID FOR POWER IN WASHINGTON.
September 2, 2000... When several eBay executives trekked to Capitol Hill in 1997, they received only a few minutes of face time with each of California's two Senators. Flash forward to December 1998, when eBay CEO Meg Whitman sat next to President Clinton as he...

From the K Street Corridor.
September 2, 2000... The End Is Near It's been a busy couple of months for the National Funeral Directors Association, which could soon accomplish a long-elusive goal. Since the 1970s, the group has pushed the government to exempt licensed funeral directors...

HELMETS AND MORTARBOARDS.
September 2, 2000... EAGLE BASE, Tuzla, Bosnia--Army Secretary Louis Caldera was having a hectic day. On a trip to inspect U.S. peacekeepers in the Balkans, he was in Kosovo for breakfast, in Macedonia midmorning, and in Bosnia later that day for a working lunch...

`WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY, AND HE IS US'.
September 2, 2000... Like a bartender poised to throw a bucket of cold water on a sleeping drunk, the Congressional Budget Office is set to tell Congress that all those military health care goodies the Senate passed before its summer recess would cost the nation a...

Hotline Extra.
September 2, 2000... Sticks and Stones Al Gore "raised the stakes" in the debate over his prescription drug plan when he told George W. Bush to "put up or shut up." (Today, NBC. 8/29) NBC's Chip Reid reported on the "tough talk": "Put-up-or-shut-time for...

WHAT YOU SHOULD LOOK FOR IN THE POLLS.
September 2, 2000... In a perfect world, there would be a federal law that prohibits polling on the presidential race between the week before the first major-party convention and two weeks after the second one. The results from that period are more fraudulent than...

Campaign Confetti.
September 2, 2000... Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader wasn't about to let conservative Alan Keyes be the only politician to jam with sociopolitical rock band Rage Against the Machine. Although he didn't surf the moshpit to get an endorsement a la...

SPOT CHECK: ADS OF THE WEEK.
September 2, 2000... A Different Kind of Drug War Republican National Committee Produced by Cold Harbor Films 30 seconds Democratic National Committee Produced by Democratic Victory 2000 30 seconds For months, prescription drug costs have starred in...

THE KEY TO THE ELECTION? TURNOUT.
September 2, 2000... The most remarkable thing about the election campaign of 2000 is how little it has changed in the six months since Al Gore and George W. Bush nailed down their parties' presidential nominations. Neither candidate has answered the fundamental...

People.
September 2, 2000... Image-Makers Public relations veteran E. Suzanne Turner, 38, has joined the Washington office of The Launch Company, an eight-year-old high-tech public relations and marketing firm with offices in Boston and Los Angeles. As mid-Atlantic...

Poll Track.(Statistical Data Included)
September 2, 2000... White House 2000 CAN'T WAIT TO HEAR THEIR TOP-10 LISTS George W. Bush and Al Gore can't seem to agree on how many times they will debate each other before the election. But even before the two candidates tangle, more voters see Gore as the...

A REFERENDUM ON GOVERNMENT'S ROLE.
September 2, 2000... Al Gore got his groove back. At the Democratic convention in Los Angeles, Gore found his voice, smooched his wife, and adopted a message that resonates with voters: straight talk on the issues. "The American people deserve to have serious,...

Good For America.
September 9, 2000... What better time is there than Labor Day to talk about what's wrong with knee-jerk antiunionism--the kind that was on display in a recent Wall Street Journal editorial (July 31, 2000). Having congratulated George W. Bush on Texas's...

A SITTING PRESIDENT CANNOT DISAPPEAR, NOR SHOULD HE.
September 9, 2000... The quaint Labor Day "launches" by Vice President Al Gore and Gov. George W. Bush of Texas produced no shifts in direction or major surprises, but thankfully, presidential campaigns always generate enough unexpected plot twists to make them...

BOY SCOUTS VS. GAYS: THE SYSTEM IS WORKING JUST FINE.
September 9, 2000... Upset by the Supreme Court's June 28 ruling that the Boy Scouts of America have a First Amendment right to bar avowed homosexuals from becoming scoutmasters, some gay-rights advocates are pressing governments, big companies, the United Way, and...

DON'T PARDON EX-PRESIDENT CLINTON. COMMUTE HIS SENTENCE.
September 9, 2000... In August, millions of Americans who were riveted by the networks' exhaustive coverage of the Democratic convention looked up briefly from their television screens to register an odd and not entirely pleasant piece of news. According to the...

Exit Strategies.
September 9, 2000... Shortly before Memorial Day, Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., held a press conference in the Capitol to announce their bipartisan resolve to enact prescription drug benefits for Medicare recipients this year. The event's...

BY THE NUMBERS.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
September 9, 2000... Here's a look at how Congress has fared in recent public opinion polls. Do you approve or disapprove of the job Congress is doing? APPROVE DISAPPROVE NBC NEWS/WALL STREET JOURNAL (7/27-28)...

HMOs on Life Support.
September 9, 2000... THE GOVERNMENT'S ABOUT TO ANNOUNCE THAT MEDICARE HMOs WILL CUT BENEFITS FURTHER IN 2001. HOW MUCH LONGER CAN THE REDUCTIONS CONTINUE? More than 10,000 elderly residents of western Pennsylvania will soon have to pay more--a lot more--for...

Great Expectations.
September 9, 2000... FEW BIG IDEAS IN WASHINGTON CATCH ON, BUT CHARTER SCHOOLS IS ONE THAT DID. A D.C. SCHOOL'S EXPERIENCE SHOWS THAT EVEN BIG IDEAS HAVE GROWING PAINS. Unsure of which high school to send her daughter and son to in fall 1999, Marlen Flores...

Sanctions with gums.(Brief Article)
September 9, 2000... Quick quiz: Against which one country among all those that emerged from the Soviet Union does the United States maintain sanctions? The answer is Azerbaijan, population eight million, a strategically important country with rich natural...

RIDING A WAVE OF DISCONTENT.
September 9, 2000... In what has become an annual game of legislative cat and mouse, congressional Republicans, frustrated at not being able to enact their conservative agenda in the environmental arena, are once again loading budget bills with dozens of riders...

PIVOTAL EVENTS IN CONGRESS.
September 9, 2000... House Unable to Override Estate Tax Veto Following a debate seething with election-year partisanship, the House on Sept. 7 failed to override President Clinton's veto of Republican legislation repealing the estate and gift tax. The 274-157...

Hill People.(Brief Article)
September 9, 2000... Senate After juggling a variety of assignments, Carl Eduardo Meacham, former special assistant to Deputy Commerce Secretary Robert Mallett, is specializing. He'll join the staff of Senate Minority Whip Harry Reid, D-Nev., to focus on...

THE WORLD'S GREATEST LAUNCHING PAD?(Brief Article)
September 9, 2000... It's no secret that virtually all of the 100 denizens of the U.S. Senate see themselves as potential Presidents. Their healthy egos got an unneeded boost in recent months as Al Gore was deciding on his running mate. Gore's various "short lists"...

POLARIZED OVER POLYGRAPHS.(polygraph testing in federal government)
September 9, 2000... Within a few days of each other in June, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson and Attorney General Janet Reno had to respond to internal security breaches. Both were faced with the option of hooking their employees up to polygraph equipment that...

IN SEARCH OF FRIENDLIER SKIES.(ways to improve air travel)
September 9, 2000... This has been the summer of airline-passenger discontent. Almost 50,000 flights were delayed in June--the worst month ever for airline on-time performance. July was somewhat better, but there were still 44,000 delays. The number of passenger...

A HEALTHY DOSE OF ISSUE ADS.(political advertising about medical care)
September 9, 2000... During this autumn's election, health care associations expect to spend huge sums of money on issue advertisements and grassroots efforts. The ads will address such pivotal matters as patients' rights, Medicare spending, and a Medicare...

HIGH TECHNOLOGY'S EDIFICE CONFLICT.(Brief Article)
September 9, 2000... For years, telecommunications industry lobbyists have squabbled over gaining access to the residential phone market. But now the real estate industry and telecom companies are battling for control over the next generation of high-technology...

FROM THE K STREET CORRIDOR.(Brief Article)
September 9, 2000... Sprechen Sie Deutsche? A herd of Washington lobbyists want to trample legislation introduced by Sen. Ernest F. Hollings, D-S.C., that would ban a company owned by a foreign government from acquiring a U.S. telephone company. The measure,...

CSIS EMBRACES OLD MISSION WITH NEW FACES.(Center for Strategic and International Studies)
September 9, 2000... THINK TANKS Rarely has any Washington institution molded its corporate culture as closely around its leader's personality and worldview as has the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a centrist think tank nearing its 40th...

A BUSH-LIEBERMAN EDUCATION TICKET?(Brief Article)
September 9, 2000... EDUCATION Don't expect any bear hugs, but Republican presidential hopeful George W. Bush and National Education Association President Bob Chase have found something they agree on: Joe Lieberman. Both say that comprehensive education...

REALITY POLITICS, ANYONE?(Brief Article)
September 9, 2000... ON THE MEDIA Welcome back from Yellowstone or wherever you people spend the summer. While you were sticking marshmallows on twigs, we were chasing George and Dick and Al and Joe around Philly and L.A. and a bunch of other places and.......

MEXICO, THE NEXT RETIREMENT MECCA?(Brief Article)
September 9, 2000... Mexicans have an old saying: So far from God, so close to the United States. Vicente Fox, Mexico's president-elect, understands that geographic conundrum. He has decided that if Mexico can't keep Uncle Sam at arm's length, it will embrace him....

LONGING FOR THE OLD GORE.(Vice President Albert Gore, Jr.)
September 9, 2000... At a meeting in Austin, Texas, on Sept. 2, the high command for Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush got some discomforting news from one of its pollsters, Jan van Lohuizen. A few days earlier, recalled one Bush strategist, a focus...

THE GREEN PARTY AND FRIENDLY FIRE.
September 9, 2000... When it comes to the environment, few candidates can claim better credentials than Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo. The son of environmental activist and former Rep. Morris K. Udall, D-Ariz., Mark Udall was awarded a 100 percent rating by the League of...

READY, AIM, FAX!(possible lawsuits over political advertising)
September 9, 2000... Even before the campaigns unofficially started on Labor Day, both parties began rolling out television ads in the battle for House control. With so much at stake, and relatively few seats in play, the competition is intense. What's hard to know...

BUSH IS LOSING THE DEBATE ON DEBATES.(Gov George W. Bush)(Brief Article)
September 9, 2000... George W. Bush's handling of the presidential debates is not only bad form but bad politics. Since the federal government is unlikely to ever sponsor campaign debates, the Commission on Presidential Debates is the closest thing we have to a...

Hotline Extra.
September 9, 2000... What's in `A' Word It was not too long ago that reporters oil the White House beat were wrestling with how to describe a stain on an intern's dress. A recent offhand comment by George W. Bush revived that squeamish feeling for some...

Verbatim.(Brief Article)
September 9, 2000... Experts from a Sept. 5 campaign speech (shown on CNN) in which George W. Bush outlined his plans for health care. When Medicare was passed in 1965, President Lyndon Johnson said no longer will older Americans be denied file healing miracle...

Campaign Coffers.(Brief Article)
September 9, 2000... Maybe Al Gore is doing too good a job of distancing himself from President Clinton. A look at records for Clinton's legal defense fund shows that 33 of the 111 people who have contributed the maximum $10,000 to the Clinton Legal Expense Trust...

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON.(Brief Article)
September 9, 2000... For all the diligent efforts of the Commission on Presidential Debates to avoid the "debate on debates"--a feature of every presidential year since John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon squared off 40 years ago--the hassling continues this time...

Poll Track.(Brief Article)
September 9, 2000... Views on policy and politics White House 2000 PIETY IN YOUR FACE The Gore campaign has been criticized of late for talking religion on the campaign trail, but in a Newsweek survey by Princeton Survey Research Associates, a...

People.
September 9, 2000... Techno-File Chris Peacock, 39, director of the press office at the Health Care Financing Administration, is trading Washington, D.C., for Silicon Valley to work for Cisco Systems as corporate public relations manager. When he received the...

CLINTON: JUST DOING HIS JOB.(Brief Article)
September 9, 2000... A 10-point lead for Al Gore in the Newsweek poll? Suddenly the presidential race has been transformed. What happened? As usual, Bill Clinton is at the bottom of this. It's not that voters changed their view of President Clinton. They...

ON THE AIR: RATS, RATINGS HYPROCISY, AND TINY TIM.
September 16, 2000... The campaign was dominated by television this week, but not televised coverage of the candidates. It has been years since network news stooped to anything as pedestrian as bringing viewers the sights and sounds of live campaign appearances...

LET'S MAKE THE FEDERAL HATE CRIMES LAW BROADER--MUCH BROADER.
September 16, 2000... Almost two-thirds of voters respond negatively when asked what they would think of a candidate who voted against "strengthening the prosecution of violent hate crimes motivated by prejudice against race, religion, gender, or sexual...

IF YOU JUDGE THE PLAN NOT THE MAN, CHOOSE GORE.
September 16, 2000... This column is interested in economics and refuses to apologize for it. Yet even Wealth of Nations must concede that choosing the next President is about more than whether his economic proposals make sense. In ordinary circumstances, the...

FROM MOVABLE TYPE TO VIRTUAL CLASSROOMS.(Brief Article)
September 16, 2000... Johannes Gutenberg's invention of movable type in the 15th century was a cornerstone of modern civilization; it created the first opportunity to disseminate information and knowledge widely and economically. Without Gutenberg, the Bible, the...

Covert Counterattack.
September 16, 2000... THE PRESIDENT IS ABOUT TO SIGN OFF ON REFORMS THAT BACKERS SAY WILL, AT LONG LAST, UNITE THE CIA, FBI, AND PENTAGON COUNTERINTELLIGENCE OPERATIONS. Barely three weeks after the Aug. 7, 1998, bombings of American embassies in Kenya and...

Political Science.
September 16, 2000... HOW CLINTON FASHIONED HIS LATE-BLOOMING PASSION FOR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY INTO A LEGACY-SEEKING POLITICAL VISION. In this go-go economy, the high-tech entrepreneurs who most skillfully integrate computer technology with business planning...

Suite Success.
September 16, 2000... WOMEN ARE GAINING GROUND AT WASHINGTON LAW FIRMS AND TRADE GROUPS. BUT IN THE PR WORLD, THEY RULE. Almost every woman who has spent her career in Washington public relations tells a horror story about the bad old days in the PR business....

A CEASE-FIRE IN THE TRADE WAR.
September 16, 2000... During the spring, Washington was consumed by the bitter brawls among divided House Democrats over President Clinton's request to grant permanent normal trade relations to China. But this week, as the Senate headed toward certain approval of...

PIVOTAL EVENTS IN CONGRESS.
September 16, 2000... Senate Moves on China Trade Bill The Senate was poised to approve legislation granting permanent normal trade relations to China after soundly defeating a score of amendments this week, including one to stem Chinese weapons proliferation....

HOUSE-SENATE COMMITTEE ACTION.
September 16, 2000... Senate VA-HUD Measure Gets Infusion of Cash * APPROPRIATIONS Republican leaders inched toward lifting restrictions on fiscal 2001 spending levels as the Senate Appropriations Committee on Sept. 13 approved its final two measures for...

Hill People.
September 16, 2000... House "Since I'm young, I'm doing public service while I can afford it," said Teddy Eynon, 30, who recently left the Office of the Independent Counsel to work for Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., as legislative director. Eynon said he first...

VEERING TOWARD HYPOCRISY.
September 16, 2000... MEMBERS OF CONGRESS SHARE SOME OF THE BLAME IN THE FIRESTONE TIRE SCANDAL. You can say lots of things about W.J. "Billy" Tauzin, the irrepressible Republican congressman from Louisiana's Cajun country, but you can't call him camera shy....

COSTLY CLEANUP FOR ENERGY?(Brief Article)
September 16, 2000... The nuclear power industry has long argued that the Energy Department is sitting on a nuclear-waste powder keg that could have expensive consequences for taxpayers. And in late August, industry officials say, their hand was strengthened when...

THE PROBLEM WITH PROMISES.(Brief Article)
September 16, 2000... Call it the politics of the specific: Vice President A1 Gore last week self-published a nearly 200-page manifesto of campaign promises, which he called his economic plan for America's families. At about the same time, Texas Gov. George W. Bush...

THE PROFITS OF BEING LESS CLUELESS.
September 16, 2000... In July, Wall Street investment analysts were flabbergasted when the Justice Department and European Union trustbusters killed World Com's $129 billion merger with Sprint Corp. But at Washington's Precursor Group, nobody was surprised. Scott C....

FROM THE K STREET CORRIDOR.(Brief Article)
September 16, 2000... They're Playing Our Song MP3.com. the lnternet music company that recently settled lawsuits with four major record labels and lost a $'118 million judgment to a fifth, is taking its case for changes in the copyright laws to Capitol Hill....

STATES SAY YAHOO! TO PRIVATE WEB PROVIDERS.
September 16, 2000... After roughly five years of effecting radical change in the private sector, the Internet is only now on the verge of transforming government to the same degree. Consumers have become comfortable buying things and communicating with each other...

FIRESTONE'S OTHER TIRE DEBACLE.(Brief Article)
September 16, 2000... TRANSPORTATION The deadly blowouts involving Firestone tires, and the, ensuing regulatory and congressional scrutiny, are not the first crises faced by the tire manufacturer. But Fire stone's responses to the tire debacle suggest that...

WALLFLOWERS IN PARADISE.(Brief Article)
September 16, 2000... Oh, how we love a federal report! And important studies by major government agencies, like the Federal Trade Commission's new report on Hollywood violence and kids, they're the best. They're instant news, no digging required. Give us a...

NO DOVES ROOST ON EITHER PRESIDENTIAL TICKET.
September 16, 2000... If you're in the military industrial complex, don't worry about who becomes President and Vice President. A close look at the voting records and policy statements of the four major presidential and vice presidential candidates shows that all of...

TAXING CHALLENGES.(Brief Article)
September 16, 2000... In The Guns of August, historian Barbara Tuchman compellingly detailed the diplomatic miscalculations and the wrongheaded military timetables that in the second decade of the 20th century propelled Europe toward World War I. These days, the...

MAKING THE CASE FOR TAX CUTS.(Brief Article)
September 16, 2000... Ronald Reagan was able to pass a tax cut when the federal budget was dipped in red ink, so you can't blame George W. Bush for thinking that it might be easier to sell income tax reductions when the government has a surplus. It worked in the...

Campaign Circuit.(Brief Article)
September 16, 2000... They've Had It With the FEC In a bid to halt "so--money" abuses in the presidential election, three leading campaign finance reform advocates have taken the unusual step of suing the Federal Election Commission in federal district court....