{"id":3912,"date":"2005-04-06T12:27:25","date_gmt":"2005-04-06T16:27:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/3912.html"},"modified":"2005-04-06T12:27:25","modified_gmt":"2005-04-06T16:27:25","slug":"stem-cell-legislation-racing-ahead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/stem-cell-legislation-racing-ahead\/","title":{"rendered":"Stem-cell legislation racing ahead"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bush is the first president in 150 years<\/a> to go an entire term without vetoing a single bill, but if progress on stem-cell legislation<\/a> stays on track, we’ll see his first one soon.<\/p>\n

A controversial bill to hike funding for stem-cell research is gaining momentum in the House, increasing the chances that it will be the first bill President Bush vetoes.<\/p>\n

The bill, sponsored by Reps. Mike Castle (R-Del.) and Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), has 186 co-sponsors, including 20 Republicans, and a Democratic aide tracking the bill predicted the legislation will eventually secure a majority of the House. Most of those votes are expected to come from House Democrats.<\/p>\n

Because a Senate version of the bill already has 58 co-sponsors, many political observers expect the bill to reach the president’s desk if it clears the House.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bush hasn’t officially warned lawmakers that he’d veto the legislation. Indeed, as far as I can tell, the White House is ignoring the bill’s existence. But the numbers here speak for themselves — proponents of funding stem-cell research have the votes to pass the bill in both chambers and Speaker Dennis Hastert has promised sponsors a floor vote<\/a>. This thing, in other words, looks like it is eventually going to pass.<\/p>\n

Which would put the White House is in a very<\/i> uncomfortable position.<\/p>\n

Because Bush hasn’t vetoed anything, there’d be more attention than usual for this presidential rejection. It would mean front-page news across the country that a bi-partisan bill to expand federal funding for life-saving medical research reached the president’s desk — but because the religious right insists a blastocyst is a person, the president refused to sign it into law. This, despite broad public support<\/a> for the research, plus the support of high-profile conservatives like Orrin Hatch<\/a> and Nancy Reagan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Would Bush really risk the political backlash? Does he really want to tell the nation that he’d reject popular, bi-partisan legislation that could save lives because James Dobson has Karl Rove on speed dial?<\/p>\n

Time will tell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bush is the first president in 150 years to go an entire term without vetoing a single bill, but if progress on stem-cell legislation stays on track, we’ll see his first one soon. A controversial bill to hike funding for stem-cell research is gaining momentum in the House, increasing the chances that it will be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3912\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}