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Karl Rove's Coaching Session
"The preoccupation with Missouri was part of a wider effort in several states, critics charge, aimed at protecting the GOP hold on Congress by dampening Democratic turnout. That effort included purges of names from lists of registered voters and tight policing of get-out-the-vote drives by Democrats.
"The Bush administration denies those claims. But they've gotten traction recently because three of the U.S. attorneys ousted by the Justice Department say they lost their jobs because they failed to prove voter fraud allegations."
Hate Crime Watch
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Jonathan Weisman writes in The Washington Post that "the House yesterday approved legislation that would extend federal hate-crime protection to gays and increase penalties against their attackers."
The bill would expand upon "a federal hate-crime law that has existed since 1968 and focuses on race, color, religion and national origin. The bill passed with relative ease, 237 to 180, with 25 Republicans joining 212 Democrats. Fourteen Democrats opposed the bill. . . .
"Under the House bill, the definition of a hate crime would expand to include gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability. Local law enforcement officials would be allowed to apply for federal grants to solve such crimes, and federal agents would be given broader authority to assist state and local police. Federal sentencing guidelines would also be stiffened."
But the House vote fell short of the 290 needed to override a presidential veto, and the White House yesterday issued a statement in opposition to the bill: "The Administration favors strong criminal penalties for violent crime, including crime based on personal characteristics, such as race, color, religion, or national origin. However, the Administration believes that H.R. 1592 is unnecessary and constitutionally questionable. If H.R. 1592 were presented to the President, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill."
Richard Simon writes for the Los Angeles Times: "Under intense pressure from conservative religious organizations to derail the bill, the White House on Thursday called it 'unnecessary and constitutionally questionable,' issuing the latest in a string of veto threats aimed at the congressional Democratic majority. . . .
"Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group, said he hoped President Bush would sign the bill.
"'We are not going to stop working on this president,' he said. 'There's time before this goes to the president's desk. I hope that we have an opportunity to engage the White House . . . to talk to him about the kind of legacy he wants to look back upon.'"
And it's worth noting that there are two different kinds of White House veto threats. There's the full-on presidential veto threat, the kind the White House issued over Democratic-backed stem-cell legislation, which flatly stated: "If S. 5 were presented to the President, he would veto the bill."
And there's what the White House calls a "senior advisors veto threat." That's what the hate-crimes bill got. So maybe Bush hasn't entirely made up his mind yet.
Speaking of Vetos
The New York Times reports: "President Bush told Congressional leaders Thursday that he would veto any legislation that weakened federal policies or laws on abortion.
