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UPI's Capital Comment for April 23, 2003

WASHINGTON, April 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.

You haven't heard the last of this...

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Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., is still dealing with the fallout over remarks widely interpreted as anti-homosexual in an interview published Tuesday. The Pennsylvania Republican suggested incest, bigamy, polygamy and other acts generally frowned upon would receive the same protections under the right to privacy as homosexual acts if the United States Supreme Court overturned the anti-sodomy law at issue in Texas vs. Lawrence.

Many pro-homosexual rights groups have called for Santorum to apologize while prominent Democrats including former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean have called for Santorum to step down from his Senate Republican leadership position.

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"I do not need to give an apology based on what I said and what I'm saying now -- I think this is a legitimate public policy discussion. This is what the state of Texas argued in their brief ... these are not, you know, ridiculous you know comments, these are very much a very important point ... with respect to I feel bad about it, I'm very disappointed that the article was written the way it was and has been construed the way it has," Santorum said in an interview with Fox News Tuesday.

Republicans on Capitol Hill and elsewhere are mounting a defense of the embattled legislator. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said Wednesday, "Rick (Santorum) is a consistent voice for inclusion and compassion in the Republican Party and in the Senate, and to suggest otherwise is just politics."

In an effort to back up the assertion that it is "just politics," Republicans were trying to link the political firestorm to Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry's presidential campaign.

According to Fox News, Lara Jakes Jordan, the wire service reporter who wrote the original story, is married to veteran Democrat operative Jim Jordan, the former executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and manager of Kerry's presidential bid. The Massachusetts Democrat was among the first to criticize Santorum's remarks Tuesday, using it as an opportunity to attack the White House.

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Advice and dissent...

A Washington-based public policy group is trying to influence the course of events in Congress by generating pressure from a select group of folks back home. Americans for Tax Reform, headed by conservative strategist Grover Norquist, has, since 2001, been working with state legislative leaders to pass resolutions instructing, advising or suggesting that members of the U.S. House and Senate from their state vote in favor of specific proposals.

The group has compiled an impressive record, claiming 47 legislative bodies in 30 states have passed a total of 89 resolutions. The resolutions, on such varied topics as support for the Bush 2003 economic growth and tax relief plain, support for ballistic missile defense, and in support of President Bush and U.S. troops in the Iraq war, are strictly advisory.

They do, however, serve to bring attention to the behavior of elected officials in Washington, which, as noted political scientist Richard Fenno explained in his famous "Homestyling" essay, does not always match the image they project to the folks at home.

Case in point: the resolution ATR's state legislative advisory project has promulgated urging an end to the Democrats' filibuster of Miguel Estrada's nomination to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

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The resolution passed the South Dakota Legislature and the Nevada Senate -- states represented by two of the filibustering Democrats who look to be facing tough re-election bids in 2004, Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and Senate Democratic Whip Harry Reid, D-Nev. The resolutions do not seem to have moved them politically, but the issue is almost certain to come up during the forthcoming campaign.

Out...

Former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., who was in the early stages of mounting a political comeback, has dropped his bid to return to Congress. Barr, a former House impeachment manager, was trying to return to Congress in Georgia's 6th Congressional District, a safe Republican seat whose current occupant, U.S. Rep. Johnny Isakson, is running for the U.S. Senate. Barr, who now advises the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Conservative Union and provides commentary on CNN, is said to have told supporters that he no longer had the fire in the belly necessary for a congressional campaign.

Personnel notes...

Jim Miller, who headed the Federal Trade Commission and the White House Office of Management and Budget under Ronald Reagan, is now a governor of the United States Postal Service. Miller had twice previously been nominated to the USPS Board of Governors for the remainder of a nine-year term expiring in 2010, once on July 26, 2002, and again on Jan. 9, 2003, but the Senate has thus far failed to take up the nomination. On Tuesday, President George W. Bush signed a recess appointment, making Miller a governor while his confirmation works its way though the Senate ... William Wood has been selected by the president to be the next U.S. ambassador to Colombia. Wood, whom the White House says is currently enrolled in language training at the National Foreign Affairs Training Center, previously served as principal deputy assistant secretary of State for the bureau for international organization affairs, and as director of the Washington office of the United States mission to the United Nations.

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