Word: congress
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...protest formally "what it considers a violation of the diplomatic immunity that Senator Pinochet enjoys," and demanded "an early end of this situation." But the British Foreign Office argued that such immunity would apply only if Pinochet had been on a diplomatic mission. Last weekend Pinochet's allies in Congress were scrambling to determine if his visit had any official purpose beyond his operation at London Bridge Hospital...
...candlelight vigil that struggled to make another argument and extract another message from his death. Ellen DeGeneres, Ted Kennedy and Barney Frank, the openly gay Massachusetts Congressman--all the expected speakers took the microphone. What was less expected was the sheer turnout of lawmakers at a moment when Congress was embroiled in the crazy closing hours of the budget deal. So many members showed up to voice their grief and anger that House minority leader Dick Gephardt had time only to read their names. "It speaks volumes about how much progress we've made," says Winnie Stachelberg, lobbyist...
...farther, and through swamps. However much it revolted people all around the country, don't count on Shepard's murder to revolutionize the intractable politics of gay rights in Washington or elsewhere. In the aftermath of the killing, President Clinton urged Congress to pass the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, a bill long bottled up by conservatives and other groups in Congress because it would broaden the definition of hate crimes to include assaults on gays as well as women and the disabled. But with Congress adjourned until after Election Day, the momentum to pass the bill is no sure thing...
More than that, some gay couples who wed in Hawaii will return to their states to begin court battles for recognition of their now legal unions. Yes, 29 states and Congress have passed laws restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples. But gays who marry in Hawaii would then have legal standing to test these laws. The federal law would also be vulnerable to challenge. In other words, the nation would begin anew the wrenching debate over marriage under way in Hawaii today. However, if the amendment is approved, gays may have to set aside their biggest issue for years...
...voters respond to such bile. Feingold says he plans to go "intensely positive" with his own advertising blitz in the next weeks, banking on backlash votes from reform-minded moderates turned off by Neumann's negative ads and the campaign-finance system that supports them. Neumann, elected to Congress in 1994 as a number-crunching budget cutter, has aimed his recent TV spots at Feingold's vote against a ban on partial-birth abortions and at his opposition to a constitutional amendment outlawing flag burning. The idea is to whip social conservatives into a holy frenzy and get them...