Culture clashes in Congress ahead of fall elections

NEWS ANALYSIS

By David Espo ~ The Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- From gays to guns to the rights of the unborn, Republicans are staging a series of cultural clashes in Congress in the run-up to the fall elections, seeking political advantage as much as legislative accomplishment.

They got a dose of both recently, praise from anti-abortion groups for passage of legislation making it a separate crime to harm a fetus during an attack on a pregnant woman.

"It is encouraging that 61 members of the U.S. Senate are willing to publicly state that a preborn baby is a human being endowed by our Creator with the same inalienable rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution as every other American," said the American Life League.

"Pregnant women who have been harmed by violence, and their families, know that there are two victims -- the mother and the unborn child -- and both victims should be protected by federal law," said President Bush, eager to reassure his conservative political base by signing the measure into law.

Passage was not in doubt, only the size of the split within the Democratic ranks.

Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, who will be Bush's challenger this fall, opposed the bill, which passed on a vote of 61-38. But 13 Democrats voted for it, including Sen. Tom Daschle, the party leader seeking re-election in conservative South Dakota.

"This whole debate ... has nothing to do with abortion," insisted Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, the bill's leading supporter.

But there was plenty of debate on that point.

"This act helps tear down the myth that the unborn child is not a person, which is the foundation of the abortion industry," Michael Schwartz, an official with the Concerned Women for America, wrote this month.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said the bill was part of a "piece by piece, bit by bit, law by law" attempt to undermine the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that said women have a constitutional right to an abortion.

"The bill says a one-day-old fertilized egg is a member of the species Homo sapiens," she said. "Translation, it is a human being."

She unsuccessfully sought approval of an alternative that provided the same tougher penalties as the GOP-backed measure, but omitted mention of "a child in utero" from the bill.

The vote occurred two days after a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on a second contested social issue, a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages.

Bush has called for action on the measure. Republicans appear far short of the two-thirds majority needed for passage, and Daschle charges them with using the Constitution for partisan purposes.

"There are those who would like to politicize this issue and they'll use whatever means available to them to maximize whatever value they find politically," he said recently.

Republicans sense the potential for gain in the presidential race and in the battle for the Senate, where Democratic retirements have created open seats in five culturally conservative southern states.

A recent national CNN poll put opposition to gay marriage at 64 percent to 32 percent.

A survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, found that gay marriage is viewed as an important issue more among those who oppose it than those who favor it. The former group includes conservatives and evangelicals -- important Republican constituencies -- as well as voters age 65 and older.

But if opposition to gay marriage is widespread, opinion on a constitutional amendment is more evenly divided.

Ironically, political self-interest may be causing a GOP slowdown on the issue.

No Judiciary Committee votes are expected until after the April 27 Republican primary in Pennsylvania. Moderate Sen. Arlen Specter faces a challenge from conservative Rep. Pat Toomey. Specter, a member of the committee, has declined to endorse the amendment.

The gun debate is not likely to result in new laws any time soon, either, but Senate Republicans were eager to debate legislation sought by Bush and the National Rifle Association.

The measure to shield gun makers from lawsuits seemed to have enough votes to pass. But Democrats, with Kerry's help, attached a pair of provisions sought by gun control advocates.

As if on cue, the NRA withdrew its support, and Republicans helped Democrats scuttle the measure.

Gun control supporters claimed victory. "The NRA's highest legislative priority was just defeated," said Mike Barnes, president of the Brady Campaign.

Republicans celebrated more quietly, hoping for a replay of the last White House campaign. Former Vice President Al Gore broke a Senate tie gun control legislation in 1999, a move that many Democrats later concluded hurt him in key states in the 2000 election.

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EDITOR'S NOTE -- David Espo is AP's chief congressional correspondent.