Week of June 15, 2003
CA-Sen: Have Republicans Nabbed Their Dream Candidate?
A possible challenger to Sen. Barbara Boxer has taken a giant step towards throwing her hat in the ring. United States Treasurer Rosario Marin, former mayor of Huntington Park in Los Angeles County, has stepped down from her post in Washington to return to California. Marin has already met with Karl Rove and the Bush administration about a possible candidacy and has been called the classic Rove/Bush candidate for her supposedly moderate stand on social issues and loyalty to Bush's economic and international agenda. Marin already has several fundraisers planned in the state (Washington Times, 5/28). Marin also served as Hispanic liaison to former Gov. Pete Wilson. Wilson, you may recall, had a strained relationship with the Hispanic community during his tenure.
MD-Sen: Mikulski Receives Top Honor for Work on Fighting Cancer
After more than 25 years of work on breast cancer and women's health issues, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) was honored with a lifetime achievement award by the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, the nation's largest breast cancer activist group. The Senate's leading champion on women's health, Mikulski has fought to set national mammography standards, to provide coverage for Pap smears and mammograms for low-income women, and to allow Medicaid coverage for breast and cervical cancer treatment (Baltimore Sun, 6/11).
Stabenow and DeLauro: Democratic Radio Stars
Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) were recently selected to give the Democratic response to President Bush's weekly radio address. On June 14, Stabenow discussed Democratic prescription drug legislation which would allow more generic drugs on the market and permit Americans to buy drugs in Canada at half the price (transcript from Stabenow website, 6/14).
In her address on June 7, DeLauro berated the same administration that uses the "No Child Left Behind" slogan, guilefully appropriated from the Children's Defense Fund's "Leave No Child Behind" mantra, for leaving behind 12 million low-income children by excluding six million families from the child tax credit. DeLauro chastised Republicans for putting the wealthy first and enriching millionaires. "Eight million families will get nothing from the recent tax bill, but the 184,000 millionaires will have their taxes slashed by $93,000," she said. DeLauro asked President Bush to call upon his leaders in Congress to do what's right for every American, not just the wealthiest (DeLauro press release, 6/6).
Anti-Choice Group Sets Its Sights on "The Deadly Dozen"
The American Life League recently launched a campaign to attack pro-choice Catholic elected officials. "The Deadly Dozen" includes Sens. Barbara Mikulski (Md.) and Patty Murray (Wash.) (Times-Picayune, 5/10). The American Life League is targeting the officials in newspaper and magazine ads. The ads ask the League's nearly 300,000 members to call on Catholic bishops to confront the legislators and ask them to renounce their abortion views and seek spiritual counseling (Sacramento Bee, 5/8).