Homeland security bill passes test

WASHINGTON -- The Senate defeated an attempt by Democrats to kill what they called special interests measures in a homeland security bill, bringing a lame-duck Congress close to granting President Bush's demand for a new Cabinet agency to protect Americans from terrorists.\nThe Senate voted 52-47 to reject an amendment that would have removed from the bill seven provisions that Democrats said were favors to friends of Republicans. The president and his key advisers actively lobbied wavering senators to defeat the amendment, saying its approval could doom passage of the bill this year.\nWith the amendment out of the way, the Senate was set to finish work on the legislation Tuesday, ending five months of contentious debate on how to carry out the most monumental reorganization of the federal government in over half a century. The Senate followed immediately with several votes, including one in which it decided 69-30 to waive budget rules affected by spending for the new agency.\nThe House last week provisionally finished its work for the year, and now can approve minor technical changes in the Senate version without calling lawmakers back to Washington.\n"The terrorists are not going to wait for a process that goes on days, weeks or months," said Senate GOP Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi. "...We need to get this done and we need to do it now."\nThree Democrats voted with the president to defeat the amendment, including Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, who faces a tough run-off election next month in her bid for a second term, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Zell Miller of Georgia.\nJohn McCain of Arizona was the only Republican to side with the Democrats. The two independents spit their vote, with Vermont's James Jeffords voting with the Democrats and Minnesota's Dean Barkley with the Republicans.\nSen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., was in Paris for a fashion tribute to Jacqueline Kennedy, and missed the vote.\nMaine's two moderate Republican senators, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, and Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., said they voted against the amendment only after receiving assurances from Lott that he would work next year to remove three of the provisions, including one that gives protections to pharmaceutical companies that have already been sued over health problems allegedly caused by vaccines. The senators said they also contacted House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., traveling in Turkey, to win his promises that the provisions would be eliminated.\nNelson said he had received a similar commitment from Lott.\nHad the Democratic amendment prevailed, House leaders would have had to decide whether to accept that version or initiate new negotiations.\nMost Democrats, while supporting the homeland security bill, balked at what they said were last-minute inclusions of special interest favors unrelated to the nation's security.\n"It's the Senate's last chance to show the American people that we are serious about placing some controls on this massive new bureaucracy," said Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., leading opponent of the legislation.