WASHINGTON - In another defeat for proponents of term limits, the Supreme Court yesterday effectively ensured that an Arkansas initiative aimed at forcing state lawmakers to back term limits will not become law.
The justices let stand a ruling by the Arkansas Supreme Court that struck down a voter initiative requiring state legislators and members of Congress to use the power of their offices to support congressional term limits, and to penalize those who refuse.
One component of that measure, sometimes referred to as the "scarlet letter" provision, said any official who failed to push for term limits would have the words "Disregarded Voter Instruction on Term Limits" printed in capital letters next to his or her name on future ballots.
"We will continue to fight in the trenches to enact term limits on Congress," said Paul Jacob, executive director of the advocacy group that backed the initiative. He said that although the Supreme Court spurned the case from Arkansas, killing that state's "instruct and inform" law, several other states have similar laws and court challenges pending. The high court could eventually weigh in on a battle from another state, Jacob noted.
Yet yesterday's action - taken in a one-sentence order and without comment from the justices - is the latest in a string of losses for the movement to restrict through legislation the tenure of members of the U.S. House and Senate.
In 1995, the Supreme Court ruled that states themselves may not limit the terms of their elected federal legislators. The justices said only an amendment to the Constitution could restrict terms.
But attempts to change the Constitution have failed. Earlier this month, the House defeated a constitutional amendment that would have limited the time federal lawmakers serve to 12 years. This time around, backers of term limits received even fewer votes than they did when the issue was voted on last year as part of the GOP's "Contract With America."
The Arkansas law at issue in Monday's case said it was the will of the voters that no one be a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for more than three terms (a total of six years) or a senator for more than two terms, 12 years total. The law further requires Arkansas state and federal legislators to use the power of their office to amend the Constitution in this way.
After a challenge to the proposed amendment by Eugenia T. Donovan of Little Rock, the Arkansas Supreme Court struck it down last October, saying the measure violated the constitutional requirement that all amendments to the U.S. Constitution originate in Congress or state legislatures. The court said that the amendment was an attempt to give legislative powers to the people.
"Clearly, the proposed Amendment 9 is nothing more than a coercive attempt to compel the Arkansas General Assembly to do as the alleged majority of the people wish, without any intellectual debate, deliberation, or consideration of whether such action is in the best interest of all the people of this state," the state court said.
The Arkansas court's action would have stripped the proposed initiative from the November ballot, but the U.S. Supreme Court allowed it to stay on pending resolution of the case - which came Monday. When the initiative was voted on last fall, it passed 61 percent to 39 percent.
In the state's appeal to the justices, Attorney General Winston Bryant said the lower court ruling "wrongly limits the role of the people in our federal scheme." He said the people should be able to express their preference for term limits or any other constitutional change and urge action on the part of state officials.
Arkansas Term Limits had intervened on behalf of the state, and in the Supreme Court, the states of Nebraska, Colorado, South Carolina and South Dakota supported Arkansas' appeal. Yesterday's joint cases were Arkansas Term Limits vs. Donovan and Arkansas vs. Donovan.
The famous landmark, long a symbol of romance and tourism, was fitted with an airport-style baggage scanner and two metal detectors. The mayor said weak gun-control laws - not a security lapse - were to blame for the shootings of seven tourists Sunday on the skyscraper's 86th-floor observation deck.
The fact that the gunman - an elderly Palestinian in the country only two months - could buy a Beretta semiautomatic handgun "is totally insane," Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said at a news conference.
A Danish tourist was killed and six other sightseers were injured before the gunman, Ali Hassan Abu Kamal, 69, killed himself. Police Commissioner Howard Safir described him as "one deranged individual working on his own."
An anti-terrorist task force was still part of the investigation, Safir said, but so far it had found no evidence that Abu Kamal was aligned with any terrorist group.
In Abu Kamal's hometown of Gaza City, relatives said he had been distraught over losing his life savings of more than $300,000 and had no ties to Palestinian radical groups. Abu Kamal called home Sunday and said he could not send tuition money to one of his sons, who is studying civil engineering in Russia, a son-in-law said.
A security camera showed that Abu Kamal concealed his weapon under a long coat while entering the Empire State Building. He took an elevator to an observation deck visited by 3 million tourists each year.
Some witnesses said he mumbled something about Egypt before opening fire on a group of tourists, many of them foreign. As panicked sightseers stampeded toward exits, Abu Kamal shot himself in the head, police said.
The Empire State Building was closed to tourists Monday. Visitors Tuesday will be screened by the metal detectors at the second-floor elevator to the observation deck, and will have to check their bags through the scanner.
At City Hall, Giuliani attempted to shift the focus toward gun control. He was accompanied by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., whose husband was killed and son wounded in the 1993 shootings on a Long Island Rail Road commuter train that killed six people and wounded 17.
In both that incident and Sunday's shooting, the gunmen circumvented New York's strict gun control laws by traveling out of state to buy the murder weapons, officials said.
"New York State, New York City have great gun control laws," McCarthy said. "But as the mayor said, we cannot control all the guns that are coming in from other parts of the country and that's what has to be stopped."
Officials said Abu Kamal established residence in Florida by using a motel address shortly after he arrived in the United States on Dec. 24 from Cairo. He obtained a temporary resident identification card on Jan. 30 - the same day he went into a gun shop to buy the semiautomatic, which costs about $500 and holds 14 bullets.
Police said he was required to wait three days and received the weapon on Feb. 4. The waiting period turned into five days because a weekend fell during the three-day waiting period.
"It makes no sense," Giuliani said. "He was living in a fleabag motel and you hand him a Beretta. It is totally insane."
Federal law requires aliens like Abu Kamal to be a resident for 90 days before getting a gun, although gun buying forms don't specifically say that.
Security experts agreed that no measure can stop a determined gunman.
"He could have done that in Times Square, or St. Patrick's Cathedral, or on the subway - any stage he wanted for the final act of his life," said John Horn, a senior official at Kroll Associates, a security consulting firm.
Of the six survivors, one remained in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the head. The rest were in serious but stable condition.
One victim, Patric Demange of Verdun, France, thanked police and doctors for treating him "wonderfully throughout this ordeal."
"I am a Catholic and it is important to forgive," he said.
The government will share the civil settlement with four whistle-blowers who sued SmithKline Beecham Clinical Laboratories Inc.
The investigation is continuing and the company could face criminal charges for allegedly defrauding the government's Medicare and Medicaid programs and federal employees and retirees, said U.S. Attorney Michael Stiles.
"This investigation was a monumental undertaking," Stiles said. "This is indicative of the priority that this office has placed on uncovering health care fraud."
Investigators said SmithKline billed the government for millions of lab tests that weren't medically necessary, weren't ordered by a doctor or weren't performed. The tests included such things as blood and urine tests.
The drug company said the violations were unintentional and the result of ambiguities in regulations and guidelines.
The agreement stems from three lawsuits filed by two former employees and two workers for a competitor under the False Claims Act, which allows people to sue if they believe the federal government is being defrauded.
Each whistle-blower could get up to 25 percent of the settlement, depending on their involvement the investigation. The violations occurred in 42 states and Washington, D.C., from 1988 to 1994.