Feb 12, 2006 6:56 pm US/Eastern
Martinez: Feds Had No Business In Schiavo Case
Republican Senator Reverses Earlier Position
TAMPA (CBS4/AP) ―
Almost a year after the final days of Terri Schiavo and the host of US Government efforts to intervene in her life, and death, one of the senators who voted to get congress involved in the battle now says that was a mistake. Nearly a year after calling for federal involvement to keep a brain-damaged woman artificially alive against her husband's wishes, Republican U-S Senator Mel Martinez now says it was a mistake to get involved.
Martinez led the Senate charge pushing a bill that would have given federal courts jurisdiction to reinstate Terri Schiavo's feeding tubes.
In a taped interview for "Political Connections" that aired today on Bay News Nine, the senator said "decisions of this nature really belong in state courts, not federal courts." In the case of Schiavo, a state court had ruled that her husband should be allowed to remove her feeding tubes, agreeing Schiavo was effectively brain dead and could never recover. The state's supreme court upheld that local court, but Congress attempted to intervene in a controversial, and some claimed illegal, effort to prevent removal of the feeding tubes.
The effort to keep Schiavo alive was particularly damaging to Martinez after it was revealed his legal counsel drafted a memo describing the Schiavo legislation as "a great political issue." That aide has left Martinez's staff.
Schiavo died of dehydration March 31st, following the removal of her feeding tube 13 days earlier. "Political Connections" is a joint venture between the St. Petersburg Times and the news station.
(© 2006 CBS Worldwide Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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