Category: Randy Trick
“Champion of the Poor” Surrendering His Gavel, For Now
By Randy Trick
WASHINGTON, Nov. 25, 2002–For the second time since Edward Kennedy entered the Senate in 1963, he has seen his chairmanship of the labor committee slip from his hands.
Kennedy’s work with the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee– which has the appropriate acronym HELP–has become as much a part of the senator’s identity as his Massachusetts accent, his family name and the pain of seeing all his brothers die violently.
His work on the committee, which has gone by different names but has always focused on the issues of the working class, is a reflection of his identity as the indisputable champion of the poor, his staffers say. And while they may be glum about seeing their party lose control of the upper chamber yet again, the seventh-term senator has been through this before.
Kennedy, the alpha-male of the Senate Democrats, adapts.
He will see his colleague to the north, Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, take the committee reins, just as he saw Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah take them from Democratic Sen. Harrison Williams of New Jersey in 1981, and Sen. Nancy Kassebaum of Kansas take them from Kennedy himself in 1995. When not commanding the agenda of public welfare, gavel in hand, Kennedy takes to the Senate floor, lambasting the gridlock keeping his public health or economic bills from seeing the light of day. It’s another strategy Kennedy uses with ease.
“He’s had great success both ways,” said Michael Myers, staff director of Kennedy’s HELP Committee.
Kennedy has given no hint that as the ranking minority member he will reduce the workload for his committee aides, Myers said. Instead, he’ll change his tactics and become the panel’s minority voice; he will “keep showing up and blasting away,” said his press secretary, Jim Manley, who focuses on committee issues.
“He fights. He’s always been a fighter. There’s not another gear there,” said Myers, gesturing as if trying to put an invisible five-speed into sixth. “He can’t get more aggressive.”
Each time the chairmanship of the committee has been transferred to a Republican, Kennedy has gotten it back, and his aides say it’s only a matter of time before the senator is at the helm of the ship again.
In the meantime, Kennedy will continue high-profile fights for two issues, universal health care and lower prescription drug costs.
41 million and counting
Kennedy’s unfinished symphony during his 30 years in the Senate has been his fight for universal health care.
He wrote the opening movement in 1970. Having been in the Senate for under a decade, Kennedy proposed that the United States join other industrialized nations and extend universal health care coverage to its citizens.
The second movement came in 1993, when he teamed with then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was pushing her husband’s universal health care proposal.
“Kennedy waged a big battle within Congress to make sure the bill ended up in his committee,” Myers said.
Clinton’s proposal did go to Kennedy, and he arranged exhaustive hearings on the issue. However, Clinton’s plan died on the Senate floor when Republican stall tactics forced the Democratic leaders to abandon it.
Kennedy, however, refused to raise the white flag and delivered a passionate speech from the floor.
“I will never give up the fight for health reform until senior citizens no longer have to worry about how to pay for long-term care,” he said on Sept. 26, 1994. “I will never give up the fight until the working men and women of this country know that years of effort and hard-won savings cannot be wiped out by a sudden illness. The drive for comprehensive health reform will begin again next year. We are closer than ever to our goal, and I am confident that we will prevail.”
“Everybody felt disappointed, but he felt maybe with this opportunity he got something done,” Myers remembered.
Since that debate ended in 1994, Kennedy pared his goal and has since completed three smaller pieces of his universal health care opus. In 1996 he teamed with his Republican counterpart, Kassebaum, on a law that allows workers to retain their health care insurance as they change jobs.
In 1997 he joined with Hatch to push through Congress the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides medical insurance to low-income children. During the 106th Congress he successfully sponsored legislation to make it harder for managed care companies to decline patients’ claims, teaming with Vermont’s James Jeffords, now an independent but the Republican chairman of the HELP Committee before Kennedy resumed control in 2001.
He tries to see what is doable and focuses on that, Myers said.
Kennedy sees universal health care as doable again, not because it is popular now, but because the problem with rising health care costs is pressing, and presses the working class more and more each year.
In a speech Nov. 21 at the Harvard School of Public Health, Kennedy unveiled his composition’s most recent movement: his plan to put universal health care back into the fray come January.
“In the past year, the number of uninsured grew by two million, the largest increase in a decade,” Kennedy said. “Forty-one million Americans now have no health insurance at all. Over the course of a year, 30 million more will lack coverage for an extended period.”
“Quality, affordable health insurance for every American is a matter of simple justice,” he added.
“The time is long overdue for America to join the rest of the industrial world in recognizing this fundamental right.”
But Republicans controlling the Senate, and those preparing to mount a major campaign to unseat Kennedy in 2006 should he run for re-election, hear something out of tune in Kennedy’s speeches.
“When voters are educated about what [Kennedy’s proposal] means, a national HMO, voters are not really too excited,” said Jonathan Fletcher, executive director of the Massachusetts Republican Party. “The government’s underwriting the cost of health care for all citizens will become such a drain on the Treasury that it will come to rationing health care.”
People with expensive shoes
The HELP Committee’s hearing room, with a rich wood décor and seating for fewer than 100, was packed on July 11. Kennedy’s committee members were voting to open the door for generic drugs to enter the market by making it tougher for pharmaceutical companies to renew patents on prescription drugs by altering the color of the pills or instituting some other small change.
Although the vote was, as Kennedy is fond of saying, “in the light of day,” behind the scenes, pharmaceutical lobbyists had waged a blitzkrieg against the bill. But, Myers boasts, when it came time to vote, five Republicans crossed the party line to side with all the committee’s Democrats, making the final vote 16-5 and sending the generic drug legislation to the Senate floor.
Face-offs with special interest lobbyists have been standard operating procedure in Kennedy’s public health agenda.
“Part of what he always says [about special interests] is to bring sunshine to this, bring public attention and make the vote in the light of day,” Myers said.
“That room was jammed with people in expensive shoes,” Manley said of the lobbyists watching the vote in mid-July.
Still, despite the lobbyists’ attempt to torpedo the bill, all but five of the committee members saw the importance of the legislation, Myers said.
“They were all saying there is no way Kennedy could get the bill out of committee, but when it came time to vote, five Republicans joined with the Democrats,” Myers said. “Health care affects everybody.”
Kennedy learned how much people care about drug prices years before many of his colleagues, and he fed the first flickers of the flame that has since exploded into a major campaign issue, Myers said.
“He always starts with Massachusetts and find that the challenges he sees there he’s also seeing across the nation,” Myers said. In the mid-1990s “seniors were telling Kennedy they cannot handle the drug prices. … He saw all that in Massachusetts and came back to Congress and said this is what he’s seeing and started talking about it. In two years others were seeing it and they were all talking about it.”
The House killed the generic drug bill this year by never acting on it, but Kennedy and his aides still feel victorious because the Senate approved it.
“He has a special passion for those in poverty and for working families,” Myers said.
However, stiff words from his state’s opposition party allude to Kennedy’s proposals as passé, and as throwbacks to the New Deal.
Most lawmakers are “using public policy to better people, rather than throw money at the problem,” said Fletcher. “With [most] Democrats that strategy has gone the way of the dodo bird.”
Published in The Lawrence Eagle Tribune, in Massachusetts.
Kennedy’s Medical Records Tapped: President Suffered Incredible Pain, More Than Previously Thought, says Author
By Randy Trick
WASHINGTON, Nov. 19, 2002--The cover of the December edition of The Atlantic Monthly pictures a vibrant President Kennedy frolicking in the Atlantic Ocean, and teases the cover story inside, by Robert Dallek, a professor of history and co-director of the Boston University Washington Center.
The photo is tinted blue, as is the tone of Dallek's piece, based on the first opportunity for a writer to view Kennedy's medical records from 1953 until his death in 1963.
Despite the healthy-looking photo on the magazine's cover and a headline reading "A Picture of Health," the article shows that Kennedy was a medical mess. Early in his life, he suffered chronic intestinal ills, the treatment of which may have led to the degenerative back troubles always searing though the adult Kennedy's body, leaving him unable to put on his left sock.
It's likely that the steroids Kennedy took in his teenage years led to his osteoporosis. X-rays Dallek viewed showed that Kennedy's lower vertebrae had "turned to mush," as Dallek said recently, and were littered with fractures.
Kennedy's playboy lifestyle already having been discussed at length in a myriad of books and articles over the last decade, Dallek offers something new - the first ever analysis of Kennedy's sealed medical records, based on research he did for his forthcoming book on the former president..
"It was pretty startling to see," Dallek said. "It feels very good, of course," to have been the first to look at Kennedy's medical records.
Dallek said the sheer amount of medications Kennedy's doctors gave him is sensational.
During his presidency, Kennedy was receiving steroids for Addison's disease, a hormonal disorder; painkillers for his back; anti-spasmodics for his colitis; antibiotics for his urinary tract infections; and antihistamines for his allergies.
Researching Kennedy's near -rippling health problems only bolstered Dallek's appreciation for the man's courage.
"He was so buoyant, courageous and stoic about it," Dallek said. "I've said if I were in his health I'd cower in a corner with a blanket."
Absent in the pages and pages of medical history Dallek waded through over two days is any mention of sexually transmitted diseases, about which several authors have hypothesized.
"There is nothing - nothing," Dallek said. Intentionally, he avoided speculation about Kennedy's womanizing.
In his article, Dallek mentions only a chronic urinary tract infection, attributable to just about anything.
The Atlantic article--the first of two that will appear in the magazine before Dallek's biography of Kennedy, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963, is published next spring, --reads like a medical analysis. It includes details never before unveiled, but perhaps even more spectacular has been the attention Dallek's findings have generated.
"What impresses me is the phenomenal hold Kennedy still has on the imagination of the world," Dallek said. "It's fascinating why people like Kennedy, deceased, still capture the public imagination."
Since Dallek's discoveries were publicized over the weekend in The New York Times and early this week on major television and radio talk shows, he has received a slew of e-mails, including one from Greece - "It's all the talk in Greece," he recalled it saying.
To Dallek, his article is only a case study of a greater issue, one that, given Vice President Dick Cheney's history of heart trouble, is ever-present. He wants readers to ponder some questions: To what extent should the health of public figures be public, and is society sophisticated enough to see through medical stereotypes to recognize the archetype of leadership?
Dallek called Cheney a "walking time bomb." He said that the public does not know Cheney's cholesterol level or the extent of his heart problems, although doctors attest publicly to his health.
During Kennedy's years of public service, doctors also lauded his health, at one time calling it "exceptional," Dallek said in his article. Records, however, reveal that the president's cholesterol level once exceeded 400, and typically stayed in the 300 range.
The records "read like the ordeal of an old man, not one in his late thirties, in the prime of his life," Dallek wrote in the article.
"These guys have their finger on the nuclear trigger," said Dallek. "Yet Kennedy carried it out brilliantly." Even with a backbone of mush.
Published in The Lawrence Eagle Tribune, in Massachusetts.
McCain Backs Meehan Suit, Has Plans for FEC
By Randy Trick
WASHINGTON, Nov. 14, 2002--At a midday press conference Thursday, Sen. John McCain, the campaign finance reformer from Arizona, had harsh words for the Federal Election Commission (FEC), which, he said, distorted the landmark law he and Rep. Martin T. Meehan pushed through Congress earlier this year.
McCain, a Republican, said he backs a lawsuit Meehan has filed against the FEC, and plans many of his own. He charged that four commissioners on the six-member board are too tied to partisan politics and have created new loopholes to keep money flowing into the political system.
"A law borne of years of debate on the floor of the Senate and House, and which was secured by the mobilization of thousands upon thousands of Americans, should not be strangled in its crib by four unelected officials," McCain said.
The Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act, signed into law last March, sought to end the solicitation of soft money by the major parties and the prevalence of "issue ads," which do not directly name a candidate. However, both Meehan, the Lowell Democrat, and McCain allege the FEC commissioners allowed soft money to continue by giving the national parties a chance to create "shadow entities" which can still raise soft money.
"I don't think the FEC has gotten the message that the people want campaign finance reform," Meehan said.
Meehan and Rep. Christopher Shays (R-CT) have filed suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The FEC has not yet responded to the suit.
"You can't have a better ally than John McCain," Meehan said. "He has a way with plain-speak that resonates with the American people."
McCain, in addition to lambasting the FEC commissioners, said he has plans to reform the entire FEC.
"Trust has been abused time and time again by some at the FEC … The FEC has lost all credibility," McCain said. "It must either be eliminated or fundamentally and dramatically reconstituted, and I will introduce legislation to accomplish this."
When asked for specifics, McCain said he was looking at all options, including changing how commissioners are appointed and how they can be removed, and possibly abolishing or restructuring the entire commission. Meehan said he hopes to co-author legislation with McCain to meet their goals.
"We're looking at what's wrong with the FEC," Meehan said. "It is by nature a partisan entity."
McCain indicated that he intends to file a series of lawsuits against the FEC, or corporations and unions that willingly circumvented his campaign finance reform law.
Also, McCain hopes to put the public spotlight on big-money donors.
"We will be challenging these individuals in public as well as in the courts," McCain said. "I am totally confident we'll succeed in court."
Published in The Lawrence Eagle Tribune, in Massachusetts.
Meehan Makes First Move to Stop Internet Tobacco Sales to Kids
By Randy Trick
WASHINGTON, Nov. 13, 2002--With the 107th Congress heading toward its conclusion, Rep. Martin T. Meehan introduced a bill Wednesday to curb online sales of tobacco to minors and to close tax loopholes costing states thousands of dollars each year.
"We don't tolerate alcohol sales to minors, why should we tolerate tobacco sales to minors?" said Meehan, the Democrat from Lowell.
At issue is the lack of age verification with online tobacco sales. A survey of Internet smoke shops conducted in August by Meehan and Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas Reilly found no site that asked for proper age verification in the purchasing process.
Meehan's bill aims to change that, by having a customer submit some form of identification that would then be compared to a federal database. Additionally, at the time of delivery the signer for the package will have to prove he or she is 18 or older.
According to Meehan, more than 200 virtual smoke shops have sprung up since he and Reilly conducted their first survey in 1999. Customers are drawn to the sites by offers of cheap cigarettes.
"Clearly this is a growing market that needs regulation," Meehan said.
Another clause in Meehan's bill seeks to improve enforcement of a law that requires online tobacco sites to provide states with names of customers.
For example, if a company in Illinois does not tell Massachusetts about state residents who purchased cartons of cigarettes, those customers do not pay the Massachusetts state tax. According to Meehan, Massachusetts and other states lose thousands of tax dollars each year because of state lack of enforcement. Meehan's bill would put enforcement under control of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
Also, attorneys general like Reilly would be able to file suit in federal court against online smoke shops in other states for noncompliance.
Meehan doubts his bill will see action during the lame duck session. But the sooner he introduces it, the sooner he can gather co-sponsors when he reintroduces it during the 108th Congress, he said.
Meehan recruited Rep. James V. Hansen, a Republican from Utah, as his bipartisan co-sponsor. But Hansen, representing the west side of Utah, will retire from Congress after the end of the session.
However, Hansen's office said there are about 20 other Republicans in the informal congressional health and tobacco caucus who would be willing to co-sponsor the legislation next session.
Meehan said that his bill is likely to pass next year and that he has received much support from his district and from Massachusetts lawmakers. Additionally, within hours of his announcing the introduction of his bill, Meehan received support from the American Cancer Society and American Lung Association.
Reilly issued a statement of support for Meehan's bill Wednesday, saying he "is supportive of Meehan's efforts to protect youth and state revenue used for anti-smoking programs."
Published in The Lawrence Eagle Tribune, in Massachusetts.
Kennedy Starts Talk on Raising Federal Minimum Wage
By Randy Trick
WASHINGTON, Oct. 16, 2002--Standing in front of a chart featuring a caricature of an empty-pocketed man reminiscent of the 1951 board game "Boom or Bust," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy Wednesday denounced the congressional Republican leaders who are set to block his plan to increase the minimum wage.
Kennedy used a press conference to unveil his proposal to increase the federal minimum wage from $5.15 to $6.65 an hour over the next five years for the workers who "work hard and play by the rules."
"The Senate of the United States and the House of Representatives still have time to pass a minimum wage increase," Kennedy said. "We have seen our Republican friends in leadership object to it and oppose it, but we haven't given up."
In 1996, when the minimum wage was increased from $4.25 an hour over two years, Kennedy was the main mover of the legislation. He and his fellow Massachusetts Democrat Sen. John F. Kerry ground floor action to a halt to confound then-Majority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan. After much partisan wrangling, Kennedy and his Democratic colleagues pushed the increase through.
Since then, the buying power of the minimum wage has decreased with inflation. The $5.15-an-hour minimum wage set in 1997 is worth $4.60 in 2002 and will be worth only $4.49 in 2003, according to Kennedy.
A modest rate of inflation, currently 1.24 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, gradually decreases how far a dollar can be stretched. Some states, such as Alaska and Washington, annually increase their state minimum wage as inflation increases.
On the federal level, Congress would have to vote to increase the minimum wage. Kennedy said he is seeking to do what should have been done years ago - bring the minimum wage up to a level where families can make it.
"Our increases in 1996 and 1997 will virtually be eliminated because of the gradual creep of inflation if we take no further action this year," Kennedy said.
With the senator Wednesday were representatives of the National Urban League, an advocacy group focused on conditions for blacks in the nation's large cities. Hugh B. Price, president of the group, said increasing the minimum wage would help pull 1.4 million urban families out of poverty.
The $3,000-a-year increase would give full-time workers the equivalent of 15 months of groceries, eight months of rent, seven months of utilities or ay a year's tuition at a community college, according to Kennedy.
"This issue is really all about the dignity of the men and women that earn the minimum wage," Kennedy said. These wage earners are janitorial workers, service employees, hotel and restaurant workers and childcare workers, he said.
The senator also said the minimum wage is a women's issue because many minimum-wage earners are women, a children's issue because many minimum-wage earners are single mothers and a civil rights issue because many earning the minimum are minorities.
Kennedy faced fierce opposition from a Republican-controlled House and Senate in 1996, and indications are that he may face it again. While Republican leaders have looked favorably at tax cut ideas that Democrats proposed Tuesday, increasing the minimum wage is a decidedly partisan issue.
Published in The Lawrence Eagle Tribune, in Massachusetts.
Kennedy Leads Democrats’ Charge Against Bush Economy
By Randy Trick
WASHINGTON, Oct. 15, 2002--Calling on Republican leaders in Congress and in the White House to acknowledge an urgent need to improve the economy, Massachusetts's senior senator, Edward M. Kennedy, on Tuesday rallied the Democratic troops for discussions in the Senate on revitalizing the economy.
Saying the Senate can no longer "sit around and say we don't have an economic crisis," Kennedy called on President Bush to play ball with Democrats who are seeking to extend unemployment benefits, increase the minimum wage and give employees more control over their pensions.
"We have…foreclosures on homes, the highest rate since the time of the Depression…. We have double-digit inflation in health care and we still say 'Well, it isn't really robbing the pockets of the families to pay.' We don't really see the tuition rising," Kennedy said on the Senate floor.
"Why is all that coming in place now under a Republican administration?" Kennedy asked in remarks that were intended to set the tone for the coming discussion.
Kennedy's comments came after two key Democratic leaders, House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, blasted Bush Tuesday for letting the economy slide and asked him to get on board for immediate tax cuts and other steps to stimulate economic growth.
Gephardt's economic revitalization package carries a $200 billion price tag, and includes $75 billion in tax cuts, $25 billion in spending for school construction and $75 billion for health care, particularly for Medicaid and for jobless workers who have lost health insurance.
The initial response from the White House was terse. The president's press secretary, Ari Fleischer, called the tax cut idea "interesting."
A measure Kennedy strongly supports to extend unemployment benefits until next July 14 is pending in the Senate. Kennedy, on the floor Tuesday, cited the rising unemployment rate in Massachusetts, which has reached 5 percent, according to state officials.
"Travel with me through many of the New England states, including my own state of Massachusetts, where we have the highest unemployment," Kennedy said.
In the Merrimack Valley, unemployment reached 7.4 percent in August, the highest in the state after New Bedford. with 8.1 percent, according to the Massachusetts Division of Employment and Training.
Kennedy also pointed to the national trend, where, he said, 8 million people are unemployed while only 3.2 million new jobs are available.
Kennedy was expected to hold a press conference Wednesday afternoon, where he will call for an increase in the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $6.65 an hour.
At the press conference, representatives of the National Urban League were expected to say that the $1.50 increase would help 1.4 million households from going hungry or becoming homeless.
Published in The Lawrence Eagle Tribune, in Massachusetts.
Amtrak Backing Away From MBTA
By Randy Trick
WASHINGTON, Oct. 09, 2002--Amtrak has decided to walk away from its role as operator of the Boston area's commuter lines after nearly two decades.
Amtrak and other rail companies had until noon Friday to file bids for the contract to operate the rail system. While three other rail companies have qualified to place a bid by the deadline, Amtrak announced it has no plans to enter the process to renew its contract, which expires in June.
To the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA), the bidding process means new faces in the fray.
"The MBTA is excited to have such robust competition," MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo said. "Amtrak has had a monopoly for the last 17 years."
Under the current contract, the MBTA pays Amtrak $15 million annually to manage and operate the rail system and maintain the tracks, coaches and other infrastructure, which the MBTA owns.
In a letter to the MBTA, Amtrak president David L. Gunn said the details of the proposed contract make it impossible for his company to bid.
"The provisions contained in the [request for proposals] would radically alter the contractual relationship that exists under your current agreement with us, and make it impossible to develop a reasonable pricing strategy to control risk," Gunn's July letter said.
The main factor affecting Amtrak's decision is liability. According to Amtrak spokeswoman Karina VanVeen, the MBTA's request that Amtrak provide $75 million in insurance coverage is impossible for Amtrak to meet.
"Financially that's not something we can do," VanVeen said.
Also, Amtrak would have to indemnify the MBTA, clearing the transit authority of liability in the case of accidents.
According to the MBTA, keeping the authority free of liability is an industry standard, and under the current contract, Amtrak is often free of liability even in the case of its own negligence.
Gunn also said in his letter that Amtrak "does not have the flexibility or fiscal resources to gamble on a five- or ten-year fixed-price contract."
In response, the MBTA said that asking for bids on shorter contracts, such as two or three years, would discourage other rail companies from bidding because of the complexity of the job and difficulties in transitioning from one contractor to another.
A final point of contention between Amtrak and the MBTA, which is related to the liability issue, is the condition of the MBTA's property. Amtrak said much of the environmental equipment is old and in need of replacement. The MBTA took issue with Amtrak's complaint, saying it has invested heavily in infrastructure.
"Don't forget who's been taking care of the equipment for the last 17 years," the MBTA's Pesaturo said of Amtrak's maintenance.
Ultimately, "the provisions from the MBTA asked its contractors to meet requirements we felt we couldn't," VanVeer said.
Amtrak is not fully willing to walk away from Boston, however. Amtrak's prime showpiece, the Acela Express, shares rails with MBTA's Attleboro line.
Although Amtrak has shown no interest in operating the MBTA's entire operation, Gunn offered to continue operating the southern leg of Boston's commuter rail system. This would allow Amtrak to retain control over scheduling both the Acela Express and the local transit lines.
VanVeen said Amtrak's plan to abandon its contract with the MBTA was a business decision. Amtrak has experienced financial woes over the last year. It was kept afloat this year by a $270 million emergency loan from Congress after Gunn threatened to end service over the Fourth of July weekend.
Now Gunn is asking Congress for a minimum of $1.2 billion for the current fiscal year. Whether he will get his full request is unclear.
The White House, in preparing its budget request, recommended funding Amtrak at last year's level - $521 million. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has approved the $1.2 billion, but the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has approved only $762 million, which Democratic members of the committee warn will mean a cut in long-distance service.
Published in The Lawrence Eagle Tribune, in Massachusetts.
Meehan Sues Federal Agency: Campaign Finance Champion Says Election Commission Ruined His Law
By Randy Trick
WASHINGTON, Oct. 09, 2002--The fight for campaign finance reform took a major twist as Rep. Martin T. Meehan, D-Lowell, filed suit against the Federal Election Commission (FEC) Tuesday, saying the agency has made a sham of his finance reform law, which Congress approved this year.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, contends that the FEC thwarted the intention of the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act, which Meehan wrote with Rep. Christopher Shays (R-CT) and Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), and Russell Feingold (D-WI).
After the bill passed in March, the FEC was charged with writing the rules to govern soft-money contributions. However, Meehan alleges that the agency purposefully voted to keep loopholes open that his legislation was meant to close. The law takes effect on Nov. 6, the day after the midterm elections.
The agency wanted to keep the status quo, Meehan said. After all, "the FEC helped create soft money," he added.
Meehan pointed to what he called one major misstep by the FEC, when, in writing its rules, it changed the definition of "solicit" from "request, suggest or recommend" to "ask," thus allowing what the lawsuit called "wink and nod" requests for campaign contributions.
Changes such as that are contrary to the language, intent and purpose of the campaign finance reform legislation, Meehan and his fellow plaintiffs say.
The FEC's regulations are "arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion or otherwise not in accordance with law," the lawsuit reads.
Meehan, Shays and the two senators have teamed with longtime campaign finance reform advocate Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy21. Wertheimer said the FEC effectively rewrote the law because four of its six commissioners serve the two major political parties.
"They are put there to represent the views of political parties opposed to the laws," said Wertheimer. "They function as agents of the parties."
"It is the system that is harmed, the public interest that is harmed," Meehan said.
Three of the commissioners were appointed by President Clinton, two by President Reagan and one by the current President Bush.
The FEC has two months to prepare and file a reply with the court, and a hearing date will be set after that. A formal hearing is not likely until next year, Meehan predicted.
Meehan says he feels confident about his suit's chances, calling it just another stage in the fight.
Published in The Lawrence Eagle Tribune, in Massachusetts.
Kerry, Meehan Take Iraq Stance
By Randy Trick and Marni Zelnick
WASHINGTON, Oct. 16, 2002--Two members of the Massachusetts delegation came off the fence Wednesday, announcing where they stand on authorizing the use of force against Iraq.
Sen. John Kerry said he will vote "yes" on a resolution authorizing President Bush to use force against Iraq, while Rep. Martin T. Meehan, D-Lowell, favors pursuing a multilateral approach through the United Nations.
Kerry's statement came after weeks of cautious enthusiasm for the administration's efforts to embrace the international community.
"In giving the president this authority, I expect him to fulfill the commitments he has made to the American people in recent days," Kerry said on the Senate floor, "to work with the United Nations Security Council to adopt a new resolution setting out 'tough, immediate' inspections requirements and to 'act with our allies at our side' if we have to disarm Saddam Hussein by force."
Kerry reiterated his opposition to the United States' engaging Iraq over issues other than disarmament. He stated unequivocally that he did not consider reasons put forth by the administration such as the return of Gulf War prisoners, the desire for regime change or Saddam Hussein's treatment of the Iraqi people to be justifiable grounds for war.
"Let me be clear," Kerry said, "I am voting to give this authority to the president for one reason and one reason alone: to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction if we cannot accomplish that objective through new tough weapons inspections."
Meehan said he plans to vote for a proposal authorizing force against Iraq only if a resolution from the United Nations Security Council is obtained and weapons inspections fail.
That proposal is in the form of an amendment that Rep. John Spratt, a Democrat from South Carolina, has offered.
"The amendment allows all members of Congress to register their support for a multilateral approach. That's the way to go," Meehan said in an interview.
According to Meehan, if the Security Council does not approve force, or if weapons inspections fail, the landscape of the conflict will change and will need to be reexamined.
The amendment Meehan plans to vote for will have Congress vote later on a new resolution authorizing unilateral force, should it be needed. It would also allow the new resolution to be dealt with rapidly.
Meehan hesitated to say, however, how he would vote on the Bush-endorsed resolution if the Spratt amendment fails.
From the neighboring district, Rep. John Tierney, D-Salem, took an unequivocal stance against authorizing another Iraqi war.
"The administration says that Hussein is bad, and no one disagrees," Tierney said on the House floor Wednesday. "Nor do we disagree with the notion that the U.N. resolutions must be enforced by U.N. Security Council action. The administration, though, asserts that the U.S. must act peremptorily and right now because Iraq is an imminent threat. But the truth be told, it has not met the burden of truth to that claim."
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy was also on the Senate floor Wednesday, reaffirming his resolve to vote against a resolution. In a statement released earlier this week, Kennedy characterized any action by Congress as premature, arguing that the potential costs of a war with Iraq have yet to be adequately outlined for the American people.
"The American people deserve to know what a conflict in Iraq might be like," Kennedy said. "They deserve to know how many casualties there might be. They deserve to know the true preparedness of our troops to fight in a chemical or biological environment…. They deserve to know how a conflict with Iraq will affect them and whether they are likely to be called up for duty."
Both Massachusetts senators called on the administration to provide a more detailed plan for the reconstruction of post-conflict Iraq. Kerry criticized the administration for giving "more lip service than resources" to the rebuilding of Afghanistan.
Published in The Lawrence Eagle Tribune, in Massachusetts.
Welfare Caseloads Fall Nationwide, Increase in Mass. and N.H.
By Randy Trick
WASHINGTON, Sept. 26, 2002--Welfare caseloads have been dropping nationwide since the system's reforms in 1995, but for the first time Massachusetts and New Hampshire are seeing increasing enrollments.
Nationwide, the number of families on welfare fell 2.6 percent from December 2000 to December 2001, according to statistics released earlier this week by the federal Health and Human Services Department.
From 1995 through the end of 2000, caseloads dropped 67.2 percent in Massachusetts and 51.7 percent in New Hampshire.
But now, human services departments in both states are seeing increases for the first time, just as the two states are seeing higher unemployment rates and a shrinking job market.
The increase in welfare cases is tied to the economy, said Marie Maio, administrator of transitional assistance in New Hampshire's Department of Health and Human Services. Dick Powers, public information officer at the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA), echoed the sentiment and said the increasing number of assistance recipients reflects the poor job market.
In addition, the budget situation in Massachusetts presents a dilemma for welfare programs.
"The state is going through a fiscal crisis, there's no doubt about that," Powers said. But "when the economy sours, there is a greater need for our services."
Of all the New England states, only Massachusetts and New Hampshire posted welfare increases during the December 2000-December 2001 period. Other New England states recorded decreases greater than the national average.
The number of families collecting federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) in Massachusetts increased 9.5 percent, to 46,790 families. In New Hampshire, the number of families increased 2.6 percent, to 5,786, according to the federal report.
State statistics, which are more up-to-date than federal data, show that the trend has continued in 2002.
In Massachusetts, the number of family welfare cases reached 46,483 in August, up from 42,541 the previous August- an increase of 3,942 families, or 9.3 percent.
In New Hampshire, TANF numbers peaked in May, with 6,196 cases of families receiving welfare, 4 percent higher than for the previous December, the most recent federal figures available.
However, by August the caseload had decreased by 96 families to 6,100, according to Art Stukas, field operations manager in the New Hampshire division of family assistance, part of the Department of Health and Human Services.
"We're not certain [the decline] is going to continue," he said.
The increase from August 2001 to August 2002, however, was 6.4 percent, according to numbers from New Hampshire's Department of Health and Human Services.
In Washington, Rep. Marty Meehan, a Democrat from Lowell, called the increase in caseloads "very disappointing."
"It's not too surprising given the state of the economy and the rise of unemployment," Meehan said.
A bill in Congress to reauthorize welfare reform has hit a blockade, Meehan said, with House and Senate members unable to reach a compromise. Meehan said he hopes the bill will be debated soon.
To understand why the number of TANF recipients is increasing, Maio said her agency has started looking at migration into the state.
"New Hampshire has been publicized as a desirable place to live: housing is abundant and jobs are abundant," Maio said. But many are finding that this is no longer the case, she said.
Both Maio and Lynn Winterfield, a TANF administrator with New Hampshire's Department of Health and Human Services, pointed to rent prices increasing 30 to 40 percent and the loss of many jobs in the service industry, including high-tech jobs in Massachusetts and Southern New Hampshire.
Published in The Lawrence Eagle Tribune, in Massachusetts.
