Washington – The Senate nearly killed and then revived Rep. Diana DeGette’s embryonic stem-cell bill Thursday after a day of intrigue and behind-the- scenes maneuvering involving top Republicans.
An agreement reached after extended negotiations allows a vote on DeGette’s bill. She and other backers of the legislation believe they have enough votes for passage.
“This is what we have all been waiting on for the past year,” DeGette, D-Colo., said. “There is overwhelming bipartisan support for expanding stem-cell research, which will help extend or save the lives of millions of Americans.”
DeGette’s bill would void President Bush’s executive order of Aug. 9, 2001, limiting federal research funding to the 60 embryonic stem-cell lines in existence on that date.
No date was set for the vote, but Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said it would be soon. The Senate is on holiday break next week.
An agreement by the Senate to vote on the bill marked a major victory for DeGette, who co-sponsored the bill in the House with Rep. Mike Castle, R-Del. In May 2005, DeGette helped assemble a coalition that passed a stem-cell bill in the House over the objections of GOP leaders, Bush and social conservatives.
Despite that, the bill came “very close” to death in the Senate on Thursday, several congressional aides said.
Early in the afternoon, DeGette’s office heard that the bill might be in peril.
Frist had wanted to announce that he had an agreement to bring the bill to a vote. That agreement would not allow for any amendments. But Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., planned to object to that agreement because he wanted to amend DeGette’s bill, several congressional aides and senators said.
Under Senate rules, that would effectively kill DeGette’s bill for this year. Unless Coburn lifted his objection, or a senator found a way to amend the bill onto other legislation, it would not come up for a vote.
Talks with Coburn and other senators with concerns about the potential agreement appear to have changed things.
Earlier in the day, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said Frist and Coburn were negotiating in an effort to prevent Coburn’s objection.
Questioned before Frist announced the agreement, Coburn said he was in negotiations but declined to say what it would take to bring him on board.
“The time for stem cells is not now,” he said, even as he conceded it would be hard to block. “It takes us away from the things we ought to be doing.”
A few hours later, word trickled out that Frist had an agreement on the bill and that there would not be any objections. It still took nearly two hours for Frist to announce the agreement, with negotiations continuing up until the final moment.
As he announced the agreement to bring the bill to a vote, Frist, a physician, talked about the unique ability of embryonic stem cells to replicate unendingly and become any other cell in the body.
“Stem cells, all stem cells but specifically embryonic stem cells, hold a very, very specific, unique promise for therapies, some therapies, and potential cures,” Frist said.
The agreement allows votes on two other stem-cell-related bills. One bans growing embryos explicitly to harvest stem cells. The other directs the National Institutes of Health to try to find other types of cells that could become stem cells.
Bush has threatened to veto the legislation.
