Word: fletchers
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...House began its serious vote-counting last night and it?s continuing today. At this point, they don?t have the votes to defeat the Norwood-Dingell-Gansky bill (which is similar to the McCain-Kennedy-Edwards bill that passed in the Senate). The Republicans are pushing the Fletcher bill, but at this point, they just don?t have the numbers...
...leadership wants to get President Bush back in Washington - and he?s due in tonight - to work the phones and lobby harder for Fletcher. GOP leaders had at one point talked about bringing the bill up for consideration beginning Thursday and allowing one day of debate before the vote. Now they?re talking about delaying the procedure in order to give Bush some time to put in his calls Wednesday...
...Norwood hadn't been the only congressman the White House was ignoring. House Republicans hoping to get a jump on the Democrats in their chamber with a patients rights bill weren't getting much attention from the administration either. Republican Rep. Ernie Fletcher, a doctor, had been talking up his patients bill with White House aides for several months, but getting little more than mild interest. Fletcher's measure was nearly identical to Frist's, except that Fletcher eventually added a provision allowing patients to sue HMOs in state courts in a limited number of cases. Fletcher attached the state...
...Realizing last week that Senate Democrats were poised to shove an unpalatable measure at him, Bush began scrambling for a life raft from the House. Hastert had already signed on to Fletcher's bill. Bush swallowed his opposition to state court suits and publicly endorsed the measure. Bush also tried to pump oxygen into its flagging energy plan, calling for more research into developing energy-efficient products and insisting that he wants the federal government to do more to conserve power. "I think that they're getting reenergized, and that's good," said a senior House Republican aide...
...they get him out of this fix? Fletcher got some Republicans to bolt from the Norwood bill to sign on to his. But even with Hastert and the GOP leadership behind him, he doesn't yet have a majority. Many moderate Republicans are holding off and only a few Democrats have defected to his measure. "A lot of Democratic members would like to vote for this bill but they're getting unprecedented pressure from their leadership to vote against it," Fletcher tells TIME. Fletcher isn't helped by the fact that the Senate finally passed the Kennedy-McCain-Edwards bill...