http://www.nytimes.com/pages/opinion/index.htmlThe Right's Grip on the Capitol
he big Congressional stories this year have been big-ticket legislation, like Medicare prescription drugs and the pork-layered energy bill. But barely under the political radar, a long-sought, hard-right G.O.P. agenda has been quietly progressing. Proposals dear to the Republican leadership that would undermine gun controls, women's reproductive freedom, a citizen's right to seek court redress, and a vital array of other constitutional bulwarks are moving slowly toward what in some cases seems like almost certain passage.
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The Senate seems close to a vote on final approval of the egregious House bill that would grant the gun-making industry unprecedented protection from liability suits by state and local governments and victims of gun violence. Custom-tailored for the donation-rich gun lobby, the bill was strategically delayed during the sniper murders last year around Washington. Now it is moving again, and some Democrats who in the past might have helped to derail it are wavering, frightened by polls that show gun control as a losing issue in some swing states. G.O.P. leaders also are angling to let the federal assault weapon ban expire next year, and to protect the lethal loophole that exempts weapon sales at gun shows from background checks.
Under the guise of "tort reform," Senate leaders, prodded by corporate lobbyists, are just a handful of votes away from skewing the basic rules of class-action lawsuits. The bill they are considering would circumvent state jurisdiction and hobble federal courts to make it significantly harder for citizens to sue big polluters, securities cheats and other institutional powers. Senator John Breaux's alternative plan to address genuine class-action abuses is far preferable.
Final Capitol approval seems virtually certain soon for the federal ban on so-called partial-birth abortion. The deceptively broad measure, which President Bush is ready to sign, strikes at the heart of Roe v. Wade by criminalizing many midterm abortions and omitting exceptions for a mother's health. Beyond this, Republican leaders are working to enshrine in law the concept of "fetal rights." They want to turn assault on a pregnant woman into two separate crimes, a device to establish that the fetus is a "child" at any stage of gestation.
Another hard-right chestnut, a so-called victims' rights amendment to the Constitution, was forestalled in the past as critics warned it would go beyond legitimate concerns about crime victims to complicate prosecutions and undermine defendants' rights. But it has gotten a new lease on life this year, given the constitution of the House and Senate, and the new power of the Republican Party's right wing to have its agenda passed, especially with a kindred spirit in the White House. Pressure is also growing on Senate leaders to finally pass another perennial, the House's ban on flag desecration. Approval of that would be an attack on an important Supreme Court free-speech ruling. It would also add a triumphalist exclamation mark to a banner session for the hard-right agenda.
All I know is that Democrats in the Senate better be ready for a lot of filibustering if they want our support next time.