Stem-cell research set for Senate vote

The House had passed the bill in May 2005.
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
WASHINGTON -- The Senate is expected to vote this week on legislation allowing federal support for embryonic-stem-cell research, setting up a confrontation with President Bush, who has threatened to veto the bill.
Under the agreement Senate Republican leader Bill Frist of Tennessee forged to allow the debate, the long-delayed bill will need 60 votes to pass the 100-member Senate. Supporters of the bill are confident they have at least that number, and won't rule out getting the 67 votes needed to override a Bush veto, which would be the first of his presidency.
The move by Frist -- a heart surgeon who reversed course last year by embracing federal funding for such research -- means the issue could figure prominently in November's congressional elections.
Stem-cell research divides Republicans, with such senior GOP senators as Frist, Orrin Hatch of Utah and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania joining almost all the Senate's Democrats in support of the measure while Bush and a majority of Republicans in the House and Senate remain opposed.
Stem cells have already emerged as a key issue in at least one swing Senate race, in Missouri, where Republican Sen. Jim Talent opposes a proposed state constitutional amendment that would protect the research. His Democratic rival, state auditor Claire McCaskill, supports the measure and has a slight lead in recent pre-election polls.
House support
The Senate is scheduled Monday and Tuesday to consider the stem-cell bill, which the House passed 238-194 in May 2005. The vote was far short of the 290 votes needed in the 435-member House to override a veto.
But supporters think their ranks are growing.
"In the year-plus since it passed, a number of members, including Republicans, have told me they regret their votes against the bill. Whether they will vote to override their president's veto I don't know," said Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., who with Rep. Michael Castle, R-Del., co-sponsored the House-passed bill.
Castle and DeGette pressed Bush to meet with them, hoping they could persuade him not to veto their bill. But the White House rejected a meeting.
Anticipating Senate passage, the leader of one major group favoring the research said a veto isn't inevitable.
Sean Tipton, president of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, which represents about 95 academic, scientific and patient advocacy groups, said the president's track record shows he might not block the legislation.
But Bush has been emphatic that he would veto any bill that expanded his decision in the summer of 2001 to allow research using then-existing stem-cell lines.