by Lou Chibbaro Jr.

The Senate Appropriations Committee voted on Oct. 11 to allow the District of Columbia to use its own funds to implement its domestic partners law along with a clean needle exchange program aimed at curtailing the spread of AIDS.

By a vote of 16 to 13, the influential committee approved the domestic partners and clean needle programs as part of the city’s $5.3 billion fiscal year 2002 appropriations bill.

However, the committee left in place a provision approved by Congress two years ago that bars the city from implementing an initiative approved by D.C. voters legalizing medical marijuana. It also approved a new provision prohibiting the city from enforcing a ruling earlier this year by the D.C. Commission on Human Rights that orders the local Boy Scouts chapter to reinstate two openly gay scout leaders.

The House last month voted to lift the ban on the city's domestic partners law in its own version of the D.C. appropriations bill but left in place the ban on needle exchange programs.

The Senate committee vote came after Senator Nancy Landrieu (D-La.), chairperson of the Senate appropriations subcommittee on D.C, made a strong appeal for her colleagues to support the domestic partner, needle exchange, and two other local programs. One allows the city to pay the salaries of its elected "shadow" senators and House members, who are designated as lobbyists for D.C. statehood and home rule issues. The other allows the city to support lawsuits seeking voting representatives for D.C. in the House and Senate.

All four provisions were part of the D.C. appropriations bill that the committee approved.

"I feel we should be respectful of local votes by the District of Columbia," Landrieu said. "I hope we can begin a new era, that D.C. can use its own money" for locally approved laws and programs, she said, following the committee vote. "Every city in America operates this way."

Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who was among all but one of the GOP members of the committee to vote against the bill, said he was willing to accept all of the bill’s provisions, including the needle exchange provision, but decided to vote against the bill because of the domestic partners provision.

The "concept of households of people of the same sex" is unacceptable, he said.

Stevens said he expects the bill to be "stalled indefinitely" on the Senate floor if the provision lifting the ban on the domestic partners law stays in the bill.

A spokesperson for Senator Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) did not return a call seeking comment on reports that Lott was planning to use a parliamentary procedure to block the Senate from voting on the D.C. appropriations bill unless Democrats agree to restore the ban on the domestic partners law.

Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.V.), chairperson of the Appropriations Committee, said he, too, has reservations about the domestic partners provision. But Byrd, who voted for the bill, said he would consider addressing his reservations on the Senate floor.

No member of the Appropriations Committee offered any amendments to the D.C. appropriations bill when Byrd opened the committee session for amendments. Gay activists had expressed concern that Stevens or Senator Mike DeWine (R-Ohio), who has expressed opposition to the domestic partners provision during private discussions over the D.C. appropriations measure, would introduce an amendment in committee to kill the provision.

Wes Irving, DeWine’s press secretary, told the Blade on Oct. 12 that DeWine voted against the bill in committee because "he wanted things to be done as they had in previous years," when the appropriations panel retained the ban on the domestic partners, needle exchange, and other controversial issues. Irving said DeWine prefers to have those issues introduced on the Senate floor. Irving declined to say whether DeWine supports or opposes the D.C. domestic partners and needle exchange provisions on the merits.

Senator Arlen Specter (R-Penn.) was the only one of the 14 Republicans on the committee to vote for the bill.

"When they make local decisions, we ought to respect those decisions," he said, in referring to the D.C. Council’s approval of its domestic partner and needle exchange programs. Specter said he "respectfully disagrees" with his GOP colleagues on this issue.

All 15 Democrats on the committee voted for the bill. Landrieu said the Senate Democratic leadership, including Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), endorsed her position in support of lifting the ban on the city’s domestic partner and needle exchange measures.

Openly gay D.C. Councilmember David Catania (R-At-Large) and D.C. congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) called the committee’s decision to lift the congressional ban on the domestic partners law and the needle exchange program an important victory for the principle of D.C. home rule. The two also cited a decision by President Bush not to oppose the lifting of the ban on local, D.C. funding for the domestic partner and needle exchange issues as a "landmark" development.

Mitchel Daniels, director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, conveyed the president’s position on the D.C. appropriations bill in an Oct. 11 letter to Landrieu. In his letter, Daniels said the Bush administration supports extending the existing Congressional ban on the use of federal funds for needle exchange programs but makes no mention of the use of D.C. funds for needle exchange efforts. Daniels’ letter also makes no mention of the domestic partners issue.

Catania and Norton said the administration’s silence on the two issues indicates it has chosen not to oppose the use of D.C. taxpayer’s funds for the implementation of both the domestic partner and needle exchange programs.

"We view this as an enormous victory," said Catania, minutes after the Senate Appropriations Committee voted to approve the two programs as part of the city’s fiscal 2002 budget. "When you have a Republican president not opposing D.C. domestic partners and needle exchange, that’s an extraordinary development."

This article appeared online:
October 12, 2001

Return to TBC National News
http://tampabaycoalition.homestead.com/nation.html

Return to TBC  GLBT News
http://tampabaycoalition.homestead.com/News.html