Could tuning in to the World Series open young people up to a “cycle of addiction, disease and cancer”?
Well, Illinois’ anti-tobacco activist and senator, Dick Durbin, certainly thinks so.
With Congress in recess and the senator’s ability to make new laws foreclosed for a while, the Downstate Democrat has taken to kibitzing on Major League Baseball rules, specifically requesting a ban against on-field tobacco chewing.
Durbin sent out letters last week to MLB’s executive committee and the Players Association asking that the war against wads begin in time for the playoffs.
“Put an end to the longstanding link between baseball and spit tobacco, for the sake of the players’ health and the health of the children who are watching,” Durbin wrote.
Bountiful harvest: Corn farmers won a victory in the budget agreement with an extension of tax incentives for ethanol production through 2000. But why stop there?
Instead of waiting for the tax incentive to come up for renewal, farm-state lawmakers are maneuvering for an extra seven-year commitment, perhaps in time for harvest.
Democrats, among them Illinois’ Durbin and Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun, are noisily advertising a plan to attach the ethanol extension to must-pass highway-funding legislation. Meanwhile, Midwest Republicans quietly are plotting ways to circumvent their own party’s powerful opponents of ethanol.
Chief among those opponents is Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Archer (R-Texas), whose Houston constituency is not coincidentally home to many of the country’s wealthiest oil executives.
Archer’s committee has a vise grip on any tax-related legislation under House rules. But the GOP’s ethanol boosters have been poring over their parliamentary rule books in search of a way to attach the ethanol credit without triggering a review by Archer’s panel.
So far, they have “three or four” possibilities, said one GOP aide.
“It’s going to be difficult to do it in the House because of (Archer),” said Rep. Tom Ewing (R-Pontiac), who confirmed lawmakers were considering “several” attachments to the highway funding bill.
One other obstacle: Transportation Committee Chairman Bud Shuster (R-Pa.), who controls the highway funding bill, has opposed the ethanol tax credit in the past.
Needless to say, industry lobbyists are not betting the farm on the idea.
“When all is said and done, Bill Archer is going to have his say,” one lobbyist predicted.
Advice and consent: Democratic Rep. Jerry Costello of Belleville, named an unindicted co-conspirator in the successful obstruction of justice prosecution of Amiel Cueto, won’t have to pay the full fees wracked up by his pricey legal advisers.
The Federal Election Commission last week gave its permission for Costello to pay his Chicago law firm Jenner & Block out of his $422,000 campaign war chest.
Costello, who has denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged by prosecutors, argued that media reports about the case raised questions about his fitness for office, making it a campaign issue in 1996.
Cueto, a friend of the congressman since childhood, was convicted in June of obstructing an investigation into a Downstate gambling racket he allegedly ran.
Jeffrey Colman, Costello’s attorney, said he is still reviewing the FEC decision to determine which fees can be charged to the campaign. He refused to disclose the amount of the legal bill.
Walk, don’t run: Good thing Chicago Democratic Rep. Rod Blagojevich got plenty of exercise walking the picket line.
After showing his solidarity with UPS workers, declaring their strike “a test case” for the next century, Blagojevich was left sharing the pain of mail-order America.
The running shoes the seven-mile-a-day jogger is anxiously awaiting haven’t been delivered.
“It’s been two weeks,” sighed the congressman.
