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Senate May Work Overtime, Pending Action on Bill Addressing Courthouse Violence
By Keith Perine
Congressional Quarterly
April 19, 2007
A bipartisan measure aimed at reducing violence against judges and in courthouses remained mired in partisan gamesmanship Wednesday, spurring Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to threaten a weekend session to complete it.
The legislation (S 378) by Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., would expand a law that bars firearms in federal courthouses to include “other dangerous weapons.” It also would renew and broaden the authority of the court system to remove some personal information from public financial disclosure reports for judges.
Two high-profile, violent episodes two years ago, one involving a federal judge in Illinois and the other a Georgia courthouse, gave initial momentum to the legislation. But the minority blocked it in the GOP-controlled 109th Congress because it included mandatory minimum sentencing and death penalty provisions opposed by some Democrats.
The Senate voted 93-3 Wednesday to limit debate on a motion to proceed to the legislation. That vote was necessary because Tom Coburn, R-Okla., had placed a hold on the bill because it would authorize new appropriations without offsetting decreases in spending authorizations elsewhere.
The court security legislation would authorize $20 million per fiscal year from 2007 to 2011 for the U.S. Marshals Service to protect the judiciary, and $20 million per fiscal year over the same period for state, local and tribal grants for witness-protection and victim-protection programs.
Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., pointed out that authorizing government spending is not the same thing as actually appropriating money.
“It’s not about what I might do, it is what I might ultimately have to choose,” he said.
Coburn acknowledged the difference but said it was important, in principle, for lawmakers to offset new authorizations by deauthorizing other programs.
“I’m telling you the American people are ready for the game to be played a different way,” he said.
Lawmakers voted 59-38 to table a Coburn amendment that would have established a sense of the Senate that Congress has “a moral obligation to offset the cost of new government programs, initiatives and authorizations.” The Senate adopted a manager’s package of technical amendments to the measure by voice vote.
Passage of the bill is expected, but it is not clear how long the debate will last. Reid, D-Nev., moved Wednesday to limit debate on the bill itself. He filed a petition to invoke cloture that will ripen Friday.
Assuming cloture is invoked on the bill, the Senate nominally would be faced with 30 hours of debate time before voting on passage.
“We are going to finish this bill this week if it takes Saturday, Sunday, whatever it takes,” Reid said. After he filed the cloture motion, Reid said “we hope to finish this bill tomorrow,” but if no deal was struck, he is eyeing a cloture vote at 1 a.m. Friday.
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