Senate to consider contempt for Karl Rove, Josh Bolten
By LAURIE KELLMAN
The Associated Press
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Senate Judiciary Committee voted for a contempt citation against presidential confidants Karl Rove and Josh Bolten on Thursday, the latest move in an inquiry into possibly politically motivated firings of federal prosecutors.
The 12-7 vote sent the citation against the two to the full Senate, but it was not certain to advance further.
Rove, the architect of President Bush's two campaigns for the White House, and Bolten, the president's chief of staff, have refused to comply with subpoenas demanding testimony and documents in the congressional probe.
Rove, who recently left government, and Bolten claim the information Congress demands is off-limits under executive privilege. Lawmakers in both the House and Senate dispute that.
The Senate Judiciary Committee vote means that contempt citations against Bush administration officials await floor action in both chambers of Congress.
It's not clear they will advance any further.
Even if the citations receive floor votes, the issue likely would land in federal courts in a drawn-out constitutional showdown over what White House information should be made available for congressional oversight.
Any court proceedings would almost certainly survive the Bush administration.
"They should be fully aware of the futility of pressing ahead on this," White House spokesman Tony Fratto said. "It has long been understood that, in circumstances like these, that the constitutional prerogatives of the president would make it a futile and purely political act for Congress to refer contempt citations to U.S. attorneys."
Lawmakers of both parties say Congress shouldn't threaten to cite someone with contempt and not follow through.
"I vote for the contempt citations knowing that it's highly likely to be a meaningless act," Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said. "In this context we have no alternative."
Specter and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, joined 10 Democrats to report the citation to the full Senate. All seven no votes came from Republicans.
The House's contempt citations name Bolten and former White House Counsel Harriet Miers, who also refused to testify. Leaders of that chamber had planned a floor vote since September and say it's still possible.
Congress is expected to adjourn next week until January.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate on Friday approved a $286 billion farm bill with an election-year expansion of subsidies for growers and food stamps for the poor.
The bill, passed on a 79-14 vote, expands subsidies for wheat, barley, oat, soybeans and several other crops and creates new grants for vegetable and fruit growers.
It also increases loan rates for sugar producers, extends dairy programs and provides more dollars for renewable energy and conservation programs to protect environmentally sensitive farmland over the next five years.
President Bush has threatened to veto the legislation, saying it costs too much and should instead be cutting subsidies at a time of record-high crop prices. He also has threatened to veto a House version passed in July.
White House opposition and criticism from fiscal conservatives has so far had little impact on the politically popular bill.
Farm-state senators deflected several attempts to derail the bill and reduce government payments to large growers. Still, even some from farm country acknowledged the bill doesn't do enough to trim
the government's massive subsidy programs.
the government's massive subsidy programs.
Senate Agriculture Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, had hoped to take significant steps to reduce subsidies but was blocked by Southern lawmakers on the committee who favor current law.
Southern crops such as rice and cotton are more expensive to produce than corn, wheat and most other crops grown around the country.
Sen. Kent Conrad, D-North Dakota, called the bill a "good beginning," though he said it wasn't everything that Harkin would have liked.
"We also had to deal with some of the realities of our different states," Conrad said.
Harkin called it a good bill after it passed.
"We can take it home," he said.
While the House and Senate bills are similar, significant differences will have to be worked out after Congress reconvenes in January.
One of them is the creation of new $5 billion fund for weather-related agricultural disasters in the Senate version that was added by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat who is up for re-election next year.
House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minnesota, has supported the idea of such a fund but ultimately decided that other programs were more important in the House bill.
Both bills attempt to limit subsidies somewhat. The Senate legislation would eventually ban payments to "nonfarmers" whose income averages more than $750,000 a year. The bill defines farmers as those who earn more than two-thirds of their income from agriculture. There would be no new income-based limits on what a farmer could collect, though the bill would ban some farmers from collecting payments for multiple farm businesses.
SACRAMENTO -- Up to 33,000 prisoners in California may be entitled to release earlier than scheduled because the state has miscalculated their sentences, corrections officials said Wednesday.
For nearly two years, the overburdened state prison agency has failed to recalculate the sentences of those inmates despite a series of court rulings, including one by the California Supreme Court. The judges said the state applied the wrong formula when crediting certain inmates for good behavior behind bars.
Some inmates released in recent months almost certainly stayed longer in prison than they should have, said corrections officials, employees and advocates for prisoners. Some currently in prison most likely should be free, they said. But many whose sentences are too long are not scheduled to be released for months or years.
The inmates in question -- 19% of the state prison population -- are serving consecutive sentences for violent and nonviolent offenses. The sentencing errors range from a few days to several years.
Corrections officials say they have been unable to calculate the sentences properly because of staffing shortages and outdated computer systems that force analysts to do the complex work by hand.
Keeping prisoners institutionalized for too long wastes millions of dollars a year. A preliminary analysis of the problem in August by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation concluded that the longer sentences boost the state's already swollen prison population by 600 inmates a day, at a cost of nearly $26 million annually.
The state has about 173,000 prisoners and has undertaken the addition of 53,000 more beds because of overcrowding -- a situation that has helped erode the state's shaky finances.
"This is another function of the overcrowding crisis," said Don Specter, director of the Prison Law Office, a Bay Area group that represents inmates in court. "They have to handle the number of prisoners who are in the system. They can't meet their medical or mental health needs. Now it appears that there is some reason to believe that they can't even calculate their release dates correctly."
SACRAMENTO -- Up to 33,000 prisoners in California may be entitled to release earlier than scheduled because the state has miscalculated their sentences, corrections officials said Wednesday.
For nearly two years, the overburdened state prison agency has failed to recalculate the sentences of those inmates despite a series of court rulings, including one by the California Supreme Court. The judges said the state applied the wrong formula when crediting certain inmates for good behavior behind bars.
Some inmates released in recent months almost certainly stayed longer in prison than they should have, said corrections officials, employees and advocates for prisoners. Some currently in prison most likely should be free, they said. But many whose sentences are too long are not scheduled to be released for months or years.
The inmates in question -- 19% of the state prison population -- are serving consecutive sentences for violent and nonviolent offenses. The sentencing errors range from a few days to several years.
Corrections officials say they have been unable to calculate the sentences properly because of staffing shortages and outdated computer systems that force analysts to do the complex work by hand.
Keeping prisoners institutionalized for too long wastes millions of dollars a year. A preliminary analysis of the problem in August by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation concluded that the longer sentences boost the state's already swollen prison population by 600 inmates a day, at a cost of nearly $26 million annually.
The state has about 173,000 prisoners and has undertaken the addition of 53,000 more beds because of overcrowding -- a situation that has helped erode the state's shaky finances.
"This is another function of the overcrowding crisis," said Don Specter, director of the Prison Law Office, a Bay Area group that represents inmates in court. "They have to handle the number of prisoners who are in the system. They can't meet their medical or mental health needs. Now it appears that there is some reason to believe that they can't even calculate their release dates correctly."
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