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Wednesday* January 18, 1995
^^ASHINGTON
:
The Battalion • Page 5
, ■ ' '
Democrats maneuver to slow balanced-budget amendment
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a
prelude to the coming battle. Re
publican efforts to pass a bal
anced-budget amendment to the
Constitution slowed Tuesday as
it was attacked by a lone Democ
ratic senator calling it “a hoax”
on the American people.
Invoking an obscure Senate
rule, Sen. Robert C. Byrd of
West Virginia forced the Judi
ciary Committee to suspend its
work in mid-session.
Backers of the amendment
said they would try again
Wednesday. And even longtime
opponents conceded that Repub
licans in both houses likely will
command the two-thirds support
needed to send the measure — a
key component of the GOP “Con
tract With America” — to the
states for ratification.
But Byrd, 77 and an unsur
passed master at using the Sen
ate’s arcane rules to his advan
tage, vowed to keep up the fight.
“I may be run over by the stream-
roller but I don’t propose to get
out of its way or just jump upon it
and ride along with it.”
The struggle contrasted with
the overwhelming bipartisan
support behind what was cer
tain to be the first piece of leg-
islation to clear the new
Congress.
A final House vote was ex
pected shortly on a bill to place
Congress under the same work
place rules it imposes on pri
vate businesses. The Senate
passed the measure 98-1 last
week, and a similar measure
previously cleared the House
unanimously.
The balanced-budget amend
ment is the linchpin of GOP ef
forts to shrink government and
cut spending. Public,opinion
polls show strong support for
the concept after a quarter-cen
tury of unrelieved red ink. Re
publicans are hoping that once
enacted, the amendment will
provide the discipline needed to
force lawmakers to make the
politically difficult cuts.
“Our children and grandchil
dren are being shackled with an
insurmountable burden” of debt,
said Senate Judiciary Commit
tee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-
— Sen. Robert C. Byrd
Utah, as he convened the
abortive session.
Many Democrats are likely to
wind up supporting the mea
sure. But in the political maneu
vering underway, the White
House and Democratic leaders
in Congress are demanding that
Republicans specify the cuts
they envision to wipe out the
deficit. Their hope is that the
voters will recoil when they con
template reductions in programs
such as Medicare, education, the
environment and health.
“Not discussing the options
with the American people is like
a suitor telling his prospective
bride, ‘Marry me and I will
make you happy,”’ Byrd said.
“But when she asks what he has
in mind, he simply answers,
‘Trust me, baby, you don’t need
to know the details.’
“Why go through all these
motions, why go to all that ex
tent to fool the American people
and to perpetrate on the Ameri
can people a hoax?” he added.
To stall the Judiciary Com
mittee’s work, Byrd invoked a
rarely used Senate rule that
denies committees the right to
meet after the full Senate has
been in session for two hours.
Hatch appeared unperturbed
at Byrd’s maneuver. But Repub
lican patience was wearing thin
as Byrd and other Democrats
also slowed progress of legisla
tion on the floor designed to
shield the states from costly new
requirements imposed by Wash
ington. “We have what we know
as “Byrd-lock,” said Majority
Leader Robert Dole of Kansas.
In general, the balanced-
budget amendment making its
way through the House and
Senate call on the president to
submit a deficit-free spending
plan annually, beginning in
2002. Deficit spending would
be barred, except by three-
fifths votes of both houses.
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"Not discussing the options with the American
people is like a suitor telling his prospective
bride, 'Marry me and I will make you happy/"
Olive oil linked to breast cancer
□ Researchers find that
Mediterranean women less
likely to develop cancer.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists have long
been aware that Mediterranean women develop
breast cancer at one-half to 60 percent the rate
of American women.
Now they say the reason may be the use of
olive oil.
A new study “gives additional momentum” to
findings in animal tests that olive oil, alone among
fat types, helps protect against breast cancer, said
Dr. Dimitrios Trichopoulos of the Harvard School
of Public Health, author of the study.
He doesn’t want to sound alarmist. “We
should be a little more careful in advising
women what to do unless we are first absolute
ly convinced,” he said in an interview Tuesday.
“We are not at that stage yet.”
But, he said, the findings provide “an expla
nation for the paradox that Mediterranean
women consume plenty of fats, and yet they
have only 50 or 60 percent of the risk of breast
cancer, compared with other women.”
The researchers analyzed questionnaires ad
ministered to 820 women newly diagnosed with
breast cancer and an additional 1,548 cancer-
free women whose age and area of residence
paralleled those of the women with the disease.
All the women were in Greece, where olive oil
is widely used in cooking.
The researchers found that women who con
sumed olive oil more than once a day had a 25
percent lower risk of cancer when compared to
women who ate olive oil less frequently.
Trichopoulos said part of the reason olive oil
is better for the body is that it is less easily oxi
dized than polyunsaturated fats and contains
plenty of antioxidant vitamins and other com
ponents including Vitamin E. He was quick to
add: “We don’t know whether this factor or an
other, as yet-unidentified factor, is essential.”
The analysis, published in this week’s Jour
nal of the National Cancer Institute, said the
data came from one of the largest studies that
have examined the role of diet in the cause and
origins of breast cancer.
A number of studies, including the new one,
show that vegetables and fruits protect from
cancer of various types.
“Rather than feeling hopeless against these
cancers, at least we do know vegetables and
fruits in this order and vegetables prepared in
olive oil may actually provide an easy and
rather pleasant way of reducing risk,” he said.
Supreme Court to rule on
affirmative-action programs
WASHINGTON (AP) — Spe
cial federal help for companies
owned by minorities unlawfully
steals business from white-owned
companies, the Supreme Court
was told Tuesday in a key show
down on affirmative action.
The potential stakes are enor
mous. The court’s ruling, expect
ed by July, could affect billions of
dollars worth of federal contracts.
Perhaps at stake also is the fu
ture of all government affirmative
action, some of it aimed at mak
ing up for past societal bias
against women.
The court hasn’t handled a ma
jor affirmative-action dispute since
1990, and its membership today is
far more conservative. Serving as a
backdrop are the 1994 election re
sults, a rightward turn many com
mentators attribute to the fester
ing anger of one group of voters —
white males.
“That’s an impermissible racial
stereotype ... that they (racial and
ethnic minorities) need the help,”
Denver lawyer William Perry
Pendley argued in behalf of a
white businessman challenging the
affirmative-action program. He
said his client “cannot compete on
an equal footing” because of it.
Under one of the many affirma
tive-action programs required by
Congress, the Transportation De
partment’s Central Federal Lands
Highway Division gives contrac
tors on federal projects a 1.5 per
cent bonus if at least 10 percent of
their subcontracts go to “disadvan
taged business enterprises.”
Gonzales Construction is His-
panic-owned and fits the Small
Business Act’s definition of a dis
advantaged business. Adarand,
run by Randy Pech, a white man,
does not.
Pendley said Pech’s company
bids on every guardrail contract in
Colorado, but in the past has lost
12 such contracts to higher-bidding
minority-owned companies.
He said the problems faced by
minority-owned firms have little
to do with race, but more to do
with their size. Such problems
are shared by small, white-owned
businesses such as Adarand,
Pendley argued, adding, “race-
neutral solutions are called for.”
Solicitor General Drew S. Days
III countered by saying the focus of
the affirmative-action program is
social and economic disadvantage,
not race. A minority company can
lose its status as a disadvantaged
business by reaching “a level of
economic take-off,” he said.
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg,
David H. Souter and Stephen G.
Breyer, all of whom have joined
the court since its last major affir
mative-action ruling, appeared
most sympathetic to Days’ con
tention that Adarand had not
linked its lost contract to the
racial presumption.
Chief Justice William H.
Rehnquist and Justices Antonin
Scalia and Anthony M. Kennedy
appeared most hostile to Days’ ar
guments.
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