Category: Spring 2002 Newswire
Being Frank: Congressman Gets Few Breaks in a Busy Day
WASHINGTON, April 05–Congressman Barney Frank stood impatiently, left hand pressed against his chair in room 2220 of the Rayburn House Office Building. His eyes glared at the door to his left while an audience of nearly 80 sat restlessly.
Rep. Frank, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee’s Housing and Community Opportunity Subcommittee, intended to start the hearing on schedule at 10 a.m., but couldn’t begin until two other subcommittee members arrived to fulfill the mandated quorum for a vote.
Finally, after a five-minute delay, Democrat Steve Israel of Long Island and Republican Bob Barr of Georgia arrived. Elated, Mr. Frank said, “We got it! We got it!”
His workday had begun more than an hour earlier as he immersed himself in paperwork piled high on his desk in his office, a two-hallway walk from the subcommittee’s hearing room.
March 14 was cluttered with votes, back-to-back hearings and meetings, according to the congressman’s chief of staff and press secretary, Peter Kovar. Over the course of six hours — from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. — he had a mere seven minutes to himself, which accounts for his impatient wait for a quorum. He had a quick bite to eat before he met at 2:05 p.m. with students from Newton South High School, and he took a five-minute excursion to the bathroom while he waited to testify at a Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee hearing in the late afternoon.
At 9:45 that morning, Mr. Frank, who represents Southeastern Massachusetts in Congress, entered the greeting room of his office suite to briefly discuss the impending 10 a.m. hearing with Newton Mayor David Cohen, a scheduled witness at a hearing on a Bush Administration proposal to reduce or eliminate funds for Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) to nine wealthy communities, including Newton.
Before hearing from Mayor Cohen and other witnesses on the CDBG cuts, the subcommittee voted on a bill that would allot federal dollars to alleviate the burden of brownfields. Mr. Frank expressed pleasure that federal money would aid municipalities in finding new uses for potentially contaminated industrial and commercial sites.
“This is an example of a phenomenon condemned in theory and greatly sought after in practice,” he said. “This is the federal government taxing citizens and taking the money they earned privately and then giving it to other people for public purposes. á A lot of people seem to think taxes are terrible things until they want to spend for something.”
“I don’t think any of these communities (including Newton) have only wealthy people,” Mr. Frank said. “They are in metropolitan areas. They are communities that work very hard to promote diversity. They are communities that in the absence of government action would be more homogeneously wealthy than they are. And I do not want to see us take away some of the basic tools they use to promote diversity.”
Since 1980, Boston’s CDBG funds have been cut 5 percent and Newton’s have been cut 11 percent. Mr. Frank criticized the Bush proposal for even deeper cuts. In a meeting with students from Newton South later in the day, he said, “It’s the Bush Administration saying that they care about poor people, but they really don’t. They didn’t even send the head of HUD,” the Housing and Urban Development Department, to that morning’s important hearing on housing issues, he said.
The housing subcommittee hearing was briefly recessed at noon to permit the congressmen to zip to the House floor for votes. Mr. Frank voted for the “Two Strikes and You’re Out Child Protection Act,” which would require the imprisonment of repeat federal sex offenders; the bill passed 382-34.
When the hearing resumed at 12:35, Mr. Frank and Republican Rep. Sue W. Kelly of Westchester County, N.Y. were the only two of about 25 committee members to return to the hearing room. Five speakers, including Mr. Cohen, testified over the next hour. Mr. Frank praised the group for concise testimonies.
“I want to say that this has been the best group of witnesses that (adhere) to the five-minute rule” allotted to witnesses, he said.
“We were intimidated,” Mr. Cohen responded. The room burst into laughter.
After the hearing, Mr. Frank rushed back to his office for his first constituent meeting of the day with high school students Adam Richins of Wellesley, Jonathan Bloom of Allston and Amanda Lint of Foxboro, representing the National Youth League Conference (NYLC).
One of the first questions directed at Mr. Frank was about the life of a politician. “I (have a) talent for politics,” he said. “Particularly if you’re a representative, you deal with a lot of things in the course of one day. If I had to think about the same thing for seven hours, I’d probably get bored.”
Regarding Iraq: “Saddam Hussein is a horrible person — he shouldn’t even be allowed to drive a car,” Mr. Frank said, eliciting smiles from the trio. But he warned against invading Iraq. “Say to him: ‘If you ever use a (weapon of mass destruction), then you’re a dead man.’ It’s called deterrence. It worked with the Soviet Union.”
At 2:03, Mr. Frank took a quick break for a snack. Two minutes later, 21 students and two teachers from Newton South poured into his office. Sprawled across the office’s two couches, four chairs and even on the raspberry red carpet, the students were most intrigued with the federal government’s response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, specifically the increased funds for homeland security.
Mr. Frank criticized the Bush Administration and the House Republican leadership for their failure to scale back last summer’s $1.35 trillion tax cut after the Sept. 11 attacks. He said that homeland security must encompass more than airline security and military support and must also include health care (in the event of a bioterrorism attack) and guarding of harbors, borders and nuclear power plants. More money, he said, is also necessary for immigration control.
On several occasions, Mr. Frank displayed his dry humor with the students. After student Polina Raygorodskaya wondered how to allay fears that there might be a bomb on a plane, the Congressman quickly shot back, “You pray.”
He quickly added: “There’s nothing 100 percent safe in the world. You can’t protect everything, but you (reduce) the problem.”
At 2:45 p.m. Mr. Frank was en route to testifying at an Appropriations subcommittee hearing and took time along the walk to discuss his future in Congress. An 11-term Congressman from Massachusetts’s Fourth District seat, there seems to be no doubt about Mr. Frank’s continued re-election to the House. He is currently running unopposed, and has secured sizable victories in his re-election bids, winning 71 percent of the vote two years ago. As a senior member of the Massachusetts House delegation, Mr. Frank would be a top candidate for the Democratic nomination for the Senate if three-term Senator John F. Kerry vacates his seat in a bid for the presidency in two years.
Would a Senate seat interest Mr. Frank? “It would depend,” he said. “If (Mr. Kerry) were to resign, I’d consider it. Yes, I’d be interested if something were to open up. If something were to change here, though, and I’d be the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, then I don’t know.”
Now a few doors down from the Appropriations subcommittee hearing room, he makes a quick pit stop at the bathroom and then waits for 15 minutes in an office behind the committee room chatting with fellow Massachusetts Congressman James McGovern. The two must wait for two Pennsylvania representatives to complete their testimony so they can make their brief pleas for increased transportation funds for their districts in the next fiscal year. Mr. Frank requested $750,000 for planning and engineering studies on the Mansfield Route 106 Underpass Project and $750,000 for design and engineering studies on the Route 79 Relocation Project in Fall River.
At 3:50 p.m., the Congressman returned to his office for the remainder of the afternoon to sift through the paperwork still piled high on his desk.
An unabashed and proud liberal, Mr. Frank was recognized in a Washingtonian magazine poll of Capitol Hill aides in 2000 as the smartest and funniest House member, a label that California Congressman Tom Lantos, the senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, considers accurate. “He’s the smartest man in the Congress,” Mr. Lantos said as he and Mr. Frank joined other members traveling from their offices to the House floor for the day’s two votes at noon.
The compliment seemed to embarrass Mr. Frank, who responded with a slight smirk.
Written for the New Bedford Standard-Times in New Bedford, Mass.
Special Ed Gets Push From NH
WASHINGTON, April 04--Merrimack's Alice Porembski has jump-started a petition campaign that she began in 1999 with her 14-year-old Down syndrome son, Corey, to persuade the federal government to pay more for special education.
"It's kind of been on hold," Porembski said about the campaign whose members initially hoped to win a commitment for increased special-education spending in the education bill that President Bush signed in January.
Lawmakers never addressed special-education in the bill, however, and Porembski never presented the petitions.
Porembski, a special-education policy analyst at the New Hampshire Development and Disabilities Council, said she decided to restart the grass-roots campaign in earnest after talking to Sen. Jim Jeffords, I-Vt., at a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing on special-education spending here on March 21.
"He said, 'You're Corey's mom,' and right then I realized what an impact the campaign had," she said. "He asked if the campaign is active and I said yes."
Porembski hopes to deliver 1 million signatures to Congress, which later this year will begin reauthorizing the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which mandates how public schools structure and pay for lessons for special-education students.
She now has 'hundreds of thousands' of signatures from people all over the country on petitions stored in her Concord office.
When IDEA was enacted in 1975, the federal government mandated that all schools provide appropriate education for special-needs students under age 21 and pledged to cover 40 percent of the costs.
This year, however, Washington is footing only about 17 percent of the bill, forcing schools and property taxpayers to pay the difference. As recently as 1996, the federal share was as low as 5 percent, though several hard-fought battles in Congress brought the spending up to current levels.
Porembski started the National Campaign to Fully Fund IDEA with Brandee Helbick, the 1999 Miss New Hampshire, and Fidele Bernascon, the retired publisher of the Hudson-Litchfield News, in the fall of 1999.
Since she started the campaign Porembski has testified before the state Legislature and Congress about how a public education has served Corey well, and about reforms that will help improve the level of instruction he and others like him receive.
Corey, a junior high school student who plays basketball, serves as an altar boy and likes to cook, said he's ready to start his work on the campaign: writing letters and e-mails to politicians such as Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., Rep. Charles Bass, R-N.H., Jeffords and Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa.
"I tell them I want to learn. I want to speak clearly. I want to work when I grow up. I want to have a good life," he said.
Corey was featured in the March 2001 issue of Teen People magazine as one of "20 Teens Who Will Change the World."
Every five years Congress must reauthorize Part C of the bill, which covers early intervention, and Part D, which covers teacher assistance and training.
Porembski said those provisions should be revised to improve the quality of special education and lower its costs.
"Extending Part C down to birth could have a real benefit in reducing the number of children misidentified" as having special needs, saving the schools money, she said.
Porembski said many special-education teachers have no special-education training.
"There are some teachers who don't even understand that some kids are basically visual and some are basically auditory ÷ that there are many ways to present something," she said.
The Education Department will submit legislation to Congress in late summer or early fall, according to Robert Pasternack, the assistant secretary for special education and rehabilitative services.
The proposed bill will be presented either to the Senate Health Committee, on which Gregg is the senior Republican, or the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. Gregg in March said that "we're moving toward the 40 percent funding level" and that "the President's made it a strong priority."
Porembski said she has sensed greater commitment for IDEA from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in recent months. Bass, who last week secured an increase of $4 million for special education in the House-passed budget for next year, said that momentum has grown for IDEA on Capitol Hill. "Advocacy groups have effectively communicated how important this is to Congress," he said.
Published in The Union Leader, in Manchester, New Hampshire
NH AG’s Office Heads to DC to Fight for Fishermen’s Rights in Lawsuit
WASHINGTON, April 03--In an attempt to protect New Hampshire fishermen's livelihood, representatives of the state's Attorney General's office and the Division of Marine Fisheries will travel to Washington on Friday for round-the clock mediation talks on efforts to conserve groundfish.
Among the participants will be the environmental groups that sued the Commerce Department's National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) for failing to protect the groundfish, which include such species as haddock, cod and flounder.
U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler ruled in favor of the environmental groups in December, agreeing that the NMFS had not done enough to meet catch reduction requirements in the Gulf of Maine and other areas. Congress had instructed the NMFS to do more to rebuild the region's depleted groundfish industry.
The case is now in its remedial phase, and several proposed remedies have been filed with the court, including one from the New Hampshire, Maine and Rhode Island state governments.
The states - concerned about potentially severe restrictions that could hurt the economic fate of fishermen in their states - became intervenors in the case in January. New Hampshire did this because it does not want the court to decide the best way to rebuild groundfish populations, according to Peter Roth, New Hampshire's senior assistant attorney general.
"Governor [Jeanne] Shaheen directed the Attorney General's office to get involved in the remedy stage of this case to make sure the interest of fishermen is considered, said Shaheen's spokeswoman, Pamela Walsh. "We're concerned that the federal government's proposal and the suggestion made by the plaintiffs jeopardize the ability of New Hampshire fishermen and their safety," she said.
Judge Kessler referred the case to mediation on March 29 after it became clear that the two parties, along with various intervenors, including fishermen and boat owners, had very disparate views on how to resolve the dispute.
Senior assistant attorney general Roth is most concerned about thwarting remedies presented in court documents by the two sides that would hurt fishermen.
A remedy proposed by the NMFS, for example, would reduce the number of days fishermen could fish in May and June. Roth said the proposal "will force fishermen out of the water during prime fishing season. It forces them to do much of their fishing in the fall and winter months, when it's not safe to fish, or, under the complicated way the proposal is set up, work long hours during the prime season. Either way it's dangerous."
Another possibility, introduced by the Conservation Law Foundation - the lead environmental group that sued NMFS - would impose a hard cap on fishermen's allowable catch. The foundation's proposed remedy would also require fishermen to buy electronic monitoring equipment and hire on-board observers. Court filings that Roth helped prepare, however, contend that on-board monitors are ineffective and that hard cap restrictions are not equally effective for different species of fish.
The alternative remedy plan that New Hampshire, Maine and Rhode Island proposed on March 15 - that Roth and others will tout during the mediation discussions in Washington - calls instead for modifications to fishermen's existing gear, limits to the types and amount of gear that can be used and limits to fishing days during certain groundfish harvest times without unduly restricting in-shore fishermen.
Roth said New Hampshire intervened on the side of the federal agency simply because it had to choose a side. The state, he said, is aligned with neither the conservation groups nor the NMFS, but with the state's fishermen. Joining Roth on the trip to Washington will be John Nelson, the chief of the state's Division of Marine Fisheries. Approximately 35 people will be present at the mediation hearings, according to Priscilla Brooks, the marine project director at the Conservation Law Foundation in Woods Hole, Mass. Jennifer Patterson, a senior assistant attorney general in charge of the Environmental Protection Bureau, said the parties will be in separate rooms and the mediator will travel from room to room. Court documents say the mediation proceedings "will be conducted on a round-the-clock, emergency basis."
The case, The Conservation Law Foundation et al. v. Donald Evans et al., will continue during mediation, according to Judge Kessler's clerk, Jacqueline Michaels
Nancy Stanley, director of the alternative dispute resolution program, who is handling the mediation process in Washington, said the proceedings are confidential. After next Wednesday, if no consensus is reached, the case will go back to Judge Kessler.
Published in The Union Leader, in Manchester, New Hampshire
Pats Honored in White House Ceremony
By Kelly Field
WASHINGTON, April 02--One day after they threw out the first pitches at the Red Sox season opener, the Super Bowl champion New England Patriots traveled to the nation's capital for an even greater honor: a presidential reception.
"This is what it's all about," strong safety Lawyer Milloy said. "When I dreamed about winning the Lombardi Trophy [which goes to the Super Bowl champion], I knew I would have a chance to meet the President."
In a half-hour ceremony in the White House's Rose Garden, President George W. Bush likened the Patriots' win to his own presidential victory, saying that both he and the team started out as underdogs.
"I can remember when they were down on you a bit-I know how you feel," he said, standing on a podium next to the Lombardi Trophy. The Patriots, he said, "learned what I learned, that in politics and sports, the experts are often wrong."
Bush praised the team's character, saying he was impressed by the way the Patriot players, before their improbable 20-17 Super Bowl victory over the St. Louis Rams, took the field together instead of coming out individually as each was announced..
"I thought that was a pretty clear signal to America that teamwork is important; that the individual matters to the team and that the team is bigger than the individual," he said.
Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who presented Bush with a team jersey and made him an honorary team captain, said he felt the team represented "in a very humble wayáwhat the President's inspirational leadershipáhas meant to our country."
"We're a team of underdogs, we're red, white and blue, we put team first, but most of all, in the end, we're winners," he said.
Patriots coach Bill Belichick then presented the President with an autographed ball from the Super Bowl. He later joked that it was a personal "thrill" to "be up there with another Andover grad," even though Bush was "more of a baseball guy."
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass, who attended the ceremony with U.S. Sen. Jim Jeffords, D-Vt., said he hopes to be back in the Rose Garden after the World Series.
"The Red Sox have picked up the mantle of the Patriots in presenting themselves as a team," he said.
Kennedy said he hadn't bet on the game with the President, but offered to wager him on Dallas "any time he wants."
The players, for their part, seemed as excited as kids to meet the president. Many of them brought automatic cameras for photos with the president, and several had video cameras as well.
"This is one of the perks that comes with winning the Super Bowl," said wide receiver Troy Brown. "I could get used to this."
Published in The Eagle-Tribune, in Lawrence, Mass.
Doonesbury Challenges DeLauro
WASHINGTON, April 02--Charlie Pillsbury never considered being like Ralph Nader when he grew up, but when "daisy cutter" bombs sliced into Afghanistan's human population last autumn he knew that the Green Party's politics suited him.
Horrified by what he saw as the Bush Administration's "violent response" to the Sept. 11 attacks, the 54-year-old New Haven resident launched a campaign in February to wrest the redistricted 3rd Congressional District seat away from six-term U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro.
"After 12 years of watching the world from my vantage point as [Community Mediation Inc.'s] executive director, I am fed up with seeing the failed, pernicious and violent policies of our national leaders come down like a hammer on the good people of New Haven, of Colombia, of Afghanistan, and who knows where next," Pillsbury wrote in a sabbatical proposal he submitted earlier this year to his employer.
Although Pillsbury will continue working as a mediator for people seeking alternative dispute resolutions until the end of August, the Green Party nominee expects to have his campaign staff in place and his fundraising efforts in full swing by May 1.
If he receives enough individual contributions by that date, he noted, "Pillsbury for Congress" will open its office doors with the help of full-time campaign manager Michelle Branam, who is a fellow Green Party activist and member of the Connecticut Bar Association.
But to hire Branam and meet other campaign expenses, Pillsbury said, he must raise at least $20,000 beforehand and at least $100,000 by November in addition to obtaining the 3,000 signatures necessary to place his name on the ballot.
"I'm not in a position to self-finance. I certainly have some money, but the most I can contribute is $20,000. If I can raise it and I don't have to, I won't," he said, especially since he will not accept money from political action committees and is not a "stratospherically rich" candidate. Pillsbury has already accumulated $5,000 of his projected total from individuals, including a donation from his old Yale University roommate and cartoonist Garry Trudeau, who partially based his syndicated comic strip character, Mike Doonesbury, on Pillsbury during their campus escapades together in the late 1960s.
Even family ties aren't always a guarantee that you'll receive large quantities of financial support -- even if you are the great-grandson of the founder of the Pillsbury Co. as well as the son of George Pillsbury, a former Minnesota state senator (1970-1982).
"[My father] likes to see his kids involved in politics, but that doesn't mean he has to agree with them or even give them money," he said, before adding that his 77-year-old Republican mother promised to come "all the way from Minnesota" to work on his campaign.
Just as Pillsbury opposes DeLauro's support of increased defense spending as well as her backing of the Defense of Marriage Act, which would deny recognition of gay and lesbian marriages, so do he and his father tend to butt heads over Pillsbury's "love" for labor unions.
He and his father agree on some "significant issues," he noted, which may stem from Pillsbury's former party affiliations, first as a Republican teenager supporting Barry Goldwater and then from 1968 onward as a Democrat protesting Vietnam and military aid to Colombia in its ongoing civil war.
"My father and I are both pro-choice, and we both believe in democratic capitalism. That means, if capitalism is good for a few people than it is good for everybody, and we should be finding more ways to make more people capitalists."
He and DeLauro also agree on some political issues, including opposing tax breaks for the rich, or what he referred to as the "kleptocracy." His stance on less defense spending, however, remains adamantly different from DeLauro's, especially when such spending, he says, takes away potential funds for Connecticut's school systems, health care facilities and urban centers.
"Our cities, like Waterbury, are hurting financially," Pillsbury said. "I would be fighting for more federal assistance instead of putting that money into the military-industrial complex."
He is convinced that the Green Party can help him accomplish his goals as a House member.
"It can restore people's faith in democracy," Pillsbury said, " because· it's politics for people, not politics for the rich and famous."
Published in The Waterbury Republican-American, in Waterbury, Connecticut.
Gay Republican Challenges DeLauro
WASHINGTON, April 02--When restaurateur H. Richter Elser talks about his decision years ago to join his family's soda business, he jokes that Atlanta, the home of the Coca-Cola Co., would have been the best place to learn the ins and outs of that industry.
Now that the New Haven Republican is determined to unseat six-term U.S. Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro, D-3rd, he said, there is no place like Connecticut to figure out how to do just that.
"Realistically, my goal right now is to go out and meet as many people as I can, and meet all of those on the town committees," said Elser, the owner of Tibwin Grill and founder of Richter's CafÚ in downtown New Haven.
It's through the town meetings, he said, that the "bread and butter" work of local politics gets accomplished, and local politics is important to him because Connecticut constituents should be the driving force behind the congressional delegates' agendas as well as a sort of human pulley system that draws members back to local issues if they get caught up in the whirl of Washington politics.
"It's one thing to be a representative from California and not be able to go back to your district on a regular basis, but New Haven is a mere four-hour train ride," he said.
He is also trying to become better acquainted with Republican office holders, who can help spread the word on his political positions as well as give him their perspectives on how to win a tough race. In 2000, DeLauro defeated her challenger, Republican June M. Gold, 72 percent to 28 percent.
"Everyone talks about grassroots campaigning, but grassroots isn't supposed to be a euphemism for low-budget campaigning," he said. "I need to go out, so when (U.S. Reps. Nancy L. Johnson, R-6th, and Robert R. Simmons, R-2nd) run into people and they ask what Rick Elser is all about, they aren't greeted by a blank look."
This networking may benefit his campaign coffers when political action committees decide which candidate they will endorse, but Elser said he is not banking on them contributing to many political newcomers since they are more likely to turn their attention toward politicians who have established a voting record.
By the end of March, Elser raised $26,000 from individual contributors and contributed $11,000 of his own money. Nearly 40 percent of his fundraising success, he said, came from online contributions made through his World Wide Web site, http://www.richterelser.com.
"It may be a little on the high side because we also use the Web site to process credit card transactions," Elser said. On the other hand, he added, it has been helpful in expediting contributions through telephone solicitations.
"It's very easy for someone to say, 'Send me something in the mail.' It's also easy to say to someone to go to the Web site and make an online contribution" while the person is still on the phone, according to the candidate.
"Getting money for a campaign is very much like running or starting a business," Elser added. "To start a business you must be prepared to invest in it, and to start a campaign you must be prepared to invest in it."
If he is elected, he added, he would press for more federal funds for Connecticut for a better transportation system that would help stimulate small-business growth.
"In cities such as Waterbury and New Haven that are trying to rebuild their urban centers, small businesses are the first to relocate in a rebuilding neighborhood. They are the sort of local services that are quick to provide employment to people," he said. "They stabilize the neighborhood."
If an individual "can't seamlessly commute through the district, the ability to live in one town and work in another declines." He added, "We need growth because growth is the only way to stabilize the property tax."
Which is why, he said, he is not happy with DeLauro as his representative.
"For every dollar of federal taxes Connecticut residents pay, we get 62 cents back," Elser said. "What really bugs me is that that number has gone down. If I am going to be represented by anybody, I want them to use their seniority on my behalf."
Even if the state had not been redistricted, Elser would still focus on how federal funds could help him integrate the resources of New Haven's "weird nexus of planes, trains, automobiles, pipelines, cables and a port."
Elser needs to win the Republican nomination and the general election on Nov. 5 before he can get the opportunity to persuade Congress to open its wallet for Connecticut.
When he first entertained the idea of running, he said, he tried "to figure out what kind of climate" he, as a gay man, was getting himself into. He has been pleased, he added, by party members' overall response to his candidacy.
"The Republican Party is much more diverse than people give them credit for being," he said. "At the most basic level, people want to win, so they want a good candidate. Their concern really becomes: is this a person who makes sense?"
Published in The Waterbury Republican-American, in Waterbury, Connecticut.
NH’s Dept. of Education Receives Grant for Special Ed Summit
WASHINGTON, April 02--New Hampshire's Bureau of Special Education has received a grant for $20,000 to hold a special education summit in Bedford next October.
The two-day summit will bring together special education policymakers, administrators, service providers, families and advocates from New Hampshire for the purpose of turning research on improving school climate into reality.
"I'm thrilled," said Mary Ford, the director of the Bureau of Special Education in the New Hampshire Department of Education in Concord, who learned the Granite State was selected for one of eight competitive grants on March 20. The grant was awarded by the IDEA Partnerships program, which is administered by U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services. These grants fund meetings that bring disparate people together to talk about the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the law that mandates how schools educate special needs students. This year the U.S. DOE also granted IDEA Partnership grants to Colorado, Louisiana, West Virginia, Connecticut, Indiana, New Mexico and South Carolina. Applicants for the grants were charged, according to Alice Porembski, a special education policy analyst at the New Hampshire Development and Disabilities Council in Concord, with replicating a successful national IDEA summit that was held last June. That meeting was credited with strategically bringing different organizations concerned about IDEA together and forging a commitment from them to work together, according to Porembski.
Porembski helped the Bureau of Special Education prepare the grant application by interviewing state special education representatives about what special education issues matter most to them. After interviewing over a dozen people from seven groups including The New Hampshire Department of Education, The New Hampshire Developmental Disabilities Council and the New Hampshire Alliance for the Mentally Ill, Porembski decided upon school climate.
"There was very little discussion about any other topic than school climate," Porembski said. "This is the hottest topic. It's everything from bullying and teasing to violence. Schools need a better atmosphere that fosters the emotional health of special education students and all students."
Porembski said that IDEA, which will likely be reauthorized this year, can not work in schools and communities for kids unless many stakeholders are involved on the local and state level. "The national summit taught us that is has to be local," she said.
The October summit's workshops will focus on topics such as school-side approaches to miscommunication, family involvement, positive behavior support, behavior assessment and behavior intervention plans, according to Porembski.
The summit will admit 300 to 400 people. Porembski said the Bureau of Special Education has not decided if it will charge admission, but if it does, scholarships will be available for parents.
Titled "School Climate and Discipline; How Can We Create a School Climate that Creates Emotional Well Being for all Students and Meets the Unique Needs of Students with Disability," New Hampshire's summit will be held on October 18 and 19 at the Wayfarer Inn in Bedford.
Published in The Union Leader, in Manchester, New Hampshire
Pair of Granite Staters Attend White House Ceremony for the Patriots
WASHINGTON, April 02--Posing for a picture in front of the White House Tuesday, Randy "Zip" Pierce, the 2001 New England Patriots Fan of the Year Award recipient, put his arm around Patriots defenseman and fellow Nashua resident Kole Ayi. "Smile," Pierce said. "It's not often the two of us are dressed up like this."
Army Pvt. Kyle McGovern, the Merrimack soldier who returned home last week after being wounded in Afghanistan on March 2, looked on, talking about the Rose Garden ceremony for the Superbowl-winning Patriots that he and Pierce had just attended.
"It was great. They gave us VIP seats right in the front row," McGovern said. "Tom Brady walked right up to me and said, 'I'm Tom Brady,' and I was like, 'Yeah, I know.'" Brady, the Patriots' starting quarterback, signed McGovern's football and two of his hats. McGovern and Pierce also met backup quarterback Drew Bledsoe, Patriots owner Bob Kraft and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA), among others.
Approximately 200 Patriots fans, many of whom hail from New England and work in congressional offices, turned out to watch President George Bush congratulate the team. Kraft gave Bush a jersey with his name and No. 1 on it, and coach Bill Belichick gave the president an autographed football.
Bush stood in front of approximately 50 suit-clad players and said that their careers have been similar. "I can remember when they were down on you a little bit," he said. "I know how you feel." But, Bush said, they all learned the same lesson: "The experts are often wrong."
Pierce and McGovern received their tickets to the event from Rep. John Sununu (R-NH) who received them last week from the White House congressional affairs office, according to Sununu's spokeswoman, Barbara Riley. "John had previous engagements in Franklin, Northfield, Cantebury and Manchester," she said. "He gave the ticket to Kyle because he made such a great sacrifice for his country. And John couldn't think of a better person than Randy for the other ticket."
Pierce and McGovern said they liked Bush's message about overcoming adversity. "Everybody faces challenges," he said.
Pierce is blind. He is guided by his dog, Ostend, a golden retriever that is never without a Patriots scarf around his neck. McGovern gets around on crutches. He lost two toes in Operation Anaconda, the offensive that drove al-Qaida operatives from Afghanistan's Shahikot Valley. He returned home last week after being treated in a series of hospitals.
Linebacker Ayi, a 1997 graduate of Nashua High School and the lone Granite Stater on the Patriots, said the attention the team has received has been great. "I was home and walked in Wendy's and everyone was so excited," he said as he walked back to the team bus after taking a private tour of the White House. Ayi, who wears No. 99, was one of a group of Patriots who threw out the first pitch at the Boston Red Sox game at Boston's Fenway Park yesterday morning.
Published in The Union Leader, in Manchester, New Hampshire
Bush Honors Super Bowl Champs at White House
WASHINGTON, April 02--After throwing out the first pitches at Monday's season opener at Fenway Park, the Super Bowl Champion New England Patriots topped that appearance with a visit to the White House Tuesday.
The team presented President George W. Bush with a team uniform with the number one printed on the front and back, and recognized the president as an honorary captain at a morning Rose Garden reception.
"I was really impressed by the character of this team," said Mr. Bush, as he stood to the right of the glistening Lombardi Trophy. "What impressed me most was when the team took the field prior to the Super Bowl. It wasn't one of these things where the spotlight was on any individual, everybody went out at the same time. I thought that was a pretty good signal to America that teamwork is important; that the individual matters to the team, but the team is bigger than the individual."
Patriots owner Bob Kraft said, "We, as Patriots family feel·that we represent in a very small way what the President's inspirational leadership over the last year has meant to our country, because we're a team of underdogs. We're red, white and blue, we put team first, but most of all, in the end, we were winners."
Added Mr. Bush, "Most of all· I was amazed at the play and how they won. For a guy growing up in Texas, that snow game (the second-round playoff game against the Oakland Raiders) looked pretty rough." Mr. Bush paused, as the crowd of more than a hundred laughed under an intense Washington spring sun. "But I know all the Patriot fans were thrilled with that game and the Super Bowl. I know you've got some great fans here."
After the ceremony concluded, Mr. Bush centered a circle of Patriots players who held digital cameras and camcorders to record the experience and joked like high school students visiting the White House for the first time. Tedy Bruschi, Patriots middle linebacker, chatted with Senators Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and Jim Jeffords, I-Vermont who also attended the ceremony.
Coach Bill Belichick said later that it was unusual to see his usually serious team so giddy.
Wide Receiver Troy Brown said at a press gathering that he hoped the team would have the chance to return to the White House to celebrate future Super Bowl triumphs. "I could get used to this," he said with a laugh.
Mr. Bush even used the opportunity of celebrating the underdog Patriots to take a jab at his detractors. "I remember watching all the experts talk about the Super Bowl - no one thought they'd win," he said. "They learned what I learned, that in politics and sports, the experts are often wrong."
Written for the New Bedford Standard-Times in New Bedford, Mass.
Bush Signs Campaign Finance Reform Without Usual Fanfare
By Justin Hill
WASHINGTON, March 27--Without the usual ceremony surrounding the signing of major legislation, President Bush signed the campaign finance reform bill sponsored by Rep. Christopher Shays, R-4th, into law yesterday.
Bush signed the measure in the Oval Office before jetting to South Carolina and Georgia where he hoped to raise $3 million for Republican candidates.
"This legislation, although far from perfect, will improve the current financing system for federal campaigns," Bush said in a written statement, in which he said that "the bill does have faults."
Shays, who like other Congressmen is observing the Easter recess away from Washington, heard about the signing in a telephone call at about 8:30-9 a.m. by White House aides.
"He was thrilled by the news," said Katie Levinson, Shays's press secretary. "He understands why the president signed it the way he signed it."
In a statement, Shays said he was "grateful" the president signed his bill. "It is truly a great day for reformers and our nation," he said.
Bush, speaking in Greenville, S.C., dismissed the notion that the low-key signing ceremony reflected any mixed feelings towards the legislation.
"I wouldn't have signed it if I was really unhappy with it. I think it improves the system," Bush said.
During a press conference last week celebrating the Senate's vote to prevent a filibuster of the bill, Shays said he hoped the president would invite members of several interest groups to the signing ceremony. Instead, only Vice President Dick Cheney and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice were on hand.
Hours later, groups opposed to the legislation's restrictions on so-called issue ads filed suits in Washington federal court challenging the measure's constitutionality.
The bill "eviscerates the core protections of the First Amendment by prohibiting, on pain on criminal punishment, political speech," a complaint by the National Rifle Association said.
Later, a group headed by Sen. Mitch O'Connell, R-Ky., also filed a complaint.
"Today I filed suit to defend the First Amendment right of all Americans to be able to fully participate in the political process," said McConnell, whose legal team includes former independent counsel Kenneth Starr, who investigated then-President Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky.
In the complaint, McConnell charged that the law "flagrantly contravenes more than a quarter-century of unbroken Supreme Court and lower court precedents."
At issue are the provisions in the bill that restrict issue ads in the days before an election. Opponents call this a violation of free speech.
The bill's sponsors-Shays and Rep. Martin Meehan, D-Mass., and Sens. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., and John McCain, R-Ariz.-are expected to defend the bill in court. Clinton's solicitor general, Seth Waxman, and law professor Burt Neuborne heads their legal team.
Under the bill, lawsuits must be filed in U.S. District Court in Washington and any appeals will go directly to the Supreme Court.
Published in The Hour, in Norwalk, Conn.
