With passage of 'private bill,' Congress oversteps bounds
By Bob Barr as published by Atlanta Journal-Constitution 

ATLANATA, GA (Mar. 22) The pictures tear at the heartstrings (yes, Bob Barr, contrary to public perception, does have a heart). Clearly, Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman who has spent the past 15 years of her 41-year life in a state of vegetation, deserves our prayers, sympathy and understanding. But should her heart-rending case provide the justification for the federal government to forsake centuries of sound jurisprudence and legislative respect for the courts?

   In the wee hours of Monday morning following Palm Sunday, a strong majority of the U.S. House answered in the affirmative. Although fully 174 of 435 members were absent, the 203 to 58 vote clearly signaled that the days of congressional deference to the jurisdiction of courts federal and state are at an end. Where this path will lead us is hard to say, but the process that brings us to this point is troubling.

   In recent years, the so-called "private bill" legislation designed to help only one person or family has been used less and less frequently. This reflects the notion that using the power of the Congress to help one person and not a class of persons similarly situated is fundamentally unfair.

   In almost every instance I recall in which a private bill was brought before the Judiciary Committee during the eight years I was a member, the purpose was to protect a foreign person or family by helping correct a particularly egregious situation our immigration laws could not address.

   The Schiavo legislation, though not called a "private bill," clearly is one and dramatically reverses that trend. It bluntly wrests jurisdiction of the Schiavo case from the Florida state courts, where it had resided for many years. The brain-damaged young woman's future was tossed like a pingpong ball between her parents seeking to keep her hooked up to a life-giving feeding tube, and her now-estranged husband seeking to carry out what he described as her previously expressed desire not to be kept alive by such artificial means.

   Congress has now taken the notion of a "private" bill to a new level, and interjected itself into state family law decisions in an unprecedented way.

   The bill, which was signed immediately after passage by an awakened President Bush, is clearly designed to help only a single person Terri Schiavo. But it does so in a way that enables only one person one of Terri Schiavo's parents, not her husband to apply for that help in federal court.

   In thus favoring one family member over another, based solely on the fact that the favored plaintiff shares the views of the congressional majority, the law provides for future mischief by later congresses. It also opens the door for parents to sue a disfavored spouse of their child, creating further problematic scenarios.

   Left out in the cold are the Florida courts and Legislature, both of which have grappled with this case for years and tried to resolve it as best they could. Also given the legislative high-hat are the federal courts that have repeatedly refused to hear the case correctly deciding that the case really is a matter for state law and policy-makers rather than federal.

   The final legislation pays lip service to the notion that it does not set a precedent. But if it does anything at all, it sets a precedent. In fact, it sets a precedent potentially more far-reaching than most others I can recall, in terms of legislative policy and process, equal protection, federalism, state's rights, separation of powers and family law.