UPI's Capital Comment for Aug. 23, 2002

WASHINGTON, Aug. 23 (UPI) -- Capital Comment -- Daily news notes, political rumors and important events that shape politics and public policy in Washington and the world from United Press International.

Schools in -- The stumbling campaign of California gubernatorial hopeful Bill Simon may have just gotten another break thanks to a political misstep by state school officials. In a July 16 memo to all school employees, state Deputy Superintendent of Schools Joanne Mendoza advised them that home schooling -- where parents teach their own children in their homes rather than send them to public, private or parochial schools -- is not an authorized exemption from the state's regulations governing mandatory public school attendance. Home-schooled children absent from the schools, Mendoza says, will be considered "truant." In order to be exempt, children must be taught by parents who are certified teachers, licensed by the state.

Home-schooling advocates have attacked the policy, calling it an effort to intimidate them into sending their children to the public schools. They have vowed to fight the rule that makes California the only state in the country that imposes official certification requirements on parents teaching their own children, according to the Home School Legal Defense Fund.

The nation's several million home-schooling families are a potent political force. When Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., tried to add a home school regulation amendment to an education bill several years ago, the Capitol Hill switchboard was overloaded by calls from angry parents. Miller's office had to put their phone on voice mail, so great was the volume of calls. Education reform proponents are now urging Simon, who is seeking to regain his footing in a race where private polls show him down by seven points, to go on the offensive against state officials over this issue. They argue that home schooling families in California could provide him with hundreds of volunteers while home-schoolers around the nation could swell his campaign coffers with badly needed cash as he heads into the fall.

A scorched earth policy -- Friends of the Earth, an environmental group, has wasted no time in attacking President George W. Bush's new "Healthy Forests" initiative to prevent forest fires in the West. FOE calls the proposal "an attempt to gut environmental standards that fails to protect communities and save taxpayer dollars" that will lead to "wholesale logging of national forests by waiving environmental review." In 2002, more than 5.9 million acres of forestland have been lost to wildfires; more than twice the annual average. Friends of the Earth says the Bush initiative to thin underbrush and reduce the risk of fire, is just another attempt by the Republicans to roll back the nation's environmental laws.

Hope he doesn't mail it in -- Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., told the convention of the National Association of Letter Carriers he intends to propose a comprehensive postal reform package when Congress reconvenes next year. "My hope is that (the Senate Government Affairs committee is) able to move something forward early next year. We're going to build a strong coalition. It should be clear to everyone that the postal service's 30-year-old business model needs to be updated for the 21st century." A number of postal service critics say the USPS must significantly change the way it operates and end the financial hemorrhage it experiences on a regular basis. Carper says he wants "to come up with a bill that's good for the postal service, the postal workers and the entire mailing community" and eliminate the need for the proposed presidential commission on postal reform that some have advocated.

Home isn't where you find it -- A non-profit group, the Friends of Immigration Law Enforcement, filed a motion Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, seeking permission to intervene in the case of a U.S.-born Taliban fighter being held as an enemy combatant at the Naval brig in Norfolk, Va. The group wants the court to find that captured Taliban fighter Yaser Esam Hamdi is not a U.S. citizen in spite of his birth in Louisiana to Saudi nationals in the United States on temporary work visas. They say the citizenship clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does not in fact "mandate the current practice of granting 'birthright citizenship' to children born on U.S. soil to temporary workers and tourists, nor does case law support the custom."

In the aftermath -- Voters in Georgia elected Tuesday to toss Rep. Cynthia McKinney from her congressional seat in favor of Denise Majette, a former state judge. While both women are black and liberal, McKinney's views and public pronouncements caused folks in both political parties to see her increasingly as an embarrassment -- leading Democrats like Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., a former two-term governor of the state, to endorse Majette. The race may now be over but the controversies continue.

The incumbent lost, in part because Republicans in the northern DeKalb County portion of the district embraced Majette -- at least for the purpose of ousting McKinney. On Monday, the day before the primary, Republican voters in DeKalb received phone calls intending to suppress their turnout on behalf of Majette, telling them "It is a violation of state and federal law to attempt to vote in a Democratic primary without proper documentation. State and federal enforcement officials will be monitoring polling places closely tomorrow for violations of the law." Under Georgia law, registered voters may vote in either party's primary -- meaning that crossover voting by Republican in the Democrat's primary, or vice versa, is perfectly legal. Georgia Secretary of State Cathy Cox, a Democrat, has announced her office will begin an investigation to find out who was behind the calls. Meanwhile, in Washington, discussions are under way in political circles about asking the Justice Department to look into the calls and to determine whether this effort at voter suppression in a southern state is a violation of federal voting and civil rights laws.

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