Gov. Jeb Bush was in daily contact with congressional leaders in March as court efforts to intervene on behalf of Terri Schiavo faltered, according to e-mails obtained Monday from the governor's office.
The e-mails, released to The Palm Beach Post in response to a public records request, also show that state lawmakers persevered with legislative maneuvering to keep the severely brain-damaged woman's feeding tube intact, despite advice from Bush's top Schiavo attorney that such an effort was hopeless.
Throughout the first two weeks of March, Bush's executive staff exchanged dozens of e-mails with attorneys for Sen. Bill Frist and Rep. Tom DeLay, the respective majority leaders of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, drafting and revising legislation that legal and political teams in Florida and Washington hoped would halt the removal of Schiavo's feeding tube.
The lawyers at the center of the electronic exchanges were Raquel "Rocky" Rodriguez, Bush's general counsel, and Allen Hicks, Frist's top lawyer.
Frist, R-Tenn., led the Senate effort that ultimately resulted in passage of a bill signed into law by President Bush, paving the way for Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, to seek federal court jurisdiction after repeated losses in state and district courts to try to keep their daughter alive.
The Schindlers had battled Michael Schiavo, their daughter's husband, for nearly a decade over whether the tube on which she relied for nutrition and hydration should be removed, as Schiavo contended she would have wished. The Schindlers were backed by a variety of right-to-life groups as well as the president and the governor, who all intervened on the Schindlers' behalf in a struggle that transfixed the nation until Terri Schiavo's death on March 31, 13 days after her feeding tube was removed.
Staff for Republican Floridians U.S. Rep. David Weldon, like Frist a doctor, and U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez, the sponsors of the federal "Terri's law," were among about a dozen regular recipients of the messages.
That bill, signed into law by President Bush, created a "federal remedy under habeas corpus (traditionally used for death penalty cases) for cases like Terri's," read an e-mail sent to the governor by Christa Calamas, Gov. Bush's assistant general counsel.
Also included in the e-mails was Brian Darling, Martinez's assistant who resigned last month over a memorandum he authored citing the Schiavo cause as one that would "excite" the conservative right-to-life base.
The e-mails include a terse response from Rodriguez, sent via her hand-held Blackberry device, upon learning that Pinellas County Circuit Judge George Greer had ruled in favor of the media seeking to view the Department of Children and Families' petition to intervene on Schiavo's behalf.
"DCF is assessing appellate options, and trying to determine whether Judge Greer has already released the petition to the media or has allowed time to appeal. DCF will attempt negotiations with St. Pete Times/Tribune Broadcasting...." read a message to Gov. Bush and Rodriguez from Calamas.
"Forget negotiations. They should appeal on principle," came Rodriguez's reply on March 3. Meanwhile, state lawmakers launched a quest to once again intercede in Schiavo's case.
Sen. Dan Webster, R-Oviedo, tried vainly to persuade his colleagues to support a bill that was drafted by Gov. Bush's office but which the governor's top Schiavo lawyer dismissed as futile. Ken Connor last fall tried unsuccessfully to persuade the Florida Supreme Court to uphold the "Terri's Law," passed by Florida lawmakers in 2003. That law gave Bush the authority to order Schiavo's feeding tube removed, but the court struck it down in October.
"While admirable, I do not believe it will do one thing to provide Terri Schiavo relief," Connor wrote Webster on March 12 regarding the bill Webster pushed this spring.The bill never passed.
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