Post-Schiavo Questions Await Congress's GOP Leaders

Priorities Debated As Recess Ends

Republican congressional leaders return to Washington today to confront a political landscape that's considerably more problematic than the one they left two weeks ago, when the House and Senate adjourned for Easter recess.

The searingly emotional Terri Schiavo case divided Republican-leaning voters and drew Congress into an extraordinary Palm Sunday intervention, which is now fueling claims that party leaders are out of step with mainstream America.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), already battling ethics charges, added to his combative reputation by bitterly attacking state and federal judges who rejected pleas to keep the brain-damaged woman alive. Meanwhile, his allies were rattled by criticisms from several conservative publications, including a Wall Street Journal editorial that accused DeLay of abuses that "sooner or later will sweep him out."

President Bush's top priority, restructuring Social Security, made little if any progress despite his all-out campaigning during the recess, key lawmakers said. And the Senate seems closer than ever to a major collision over judicial nominations, a topic made even more emotional by the role of federal judges in the Schiavo case.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26191-2005Apr4.html

that repugs may not have enough votes to change the filibuster. I hope they realize that when they are back in the cellar they may need it.

Looks like the Repugs are in for a rough few weeks... hehehehehe!

From the article above...

Even some Republicans who strongly oppose the Democrats' filibusters are worried that the Schiavo case suggests a GOP drift away from nuts-and-bolts legislation and toward the more polarizing agenda of religious conservatives. "I didn't come here to make a statement," said Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), the former majority leader. "I came here to get results."

Intervening in Schiavo's case, he said, "was the morally right thing to do," but "it really bothered me that the federal government would inject itself into a family medical case."
...

If Trent Lott is having trouble with the direction of the theocrats, you can bet that a large portion of the R Senators agree.