VERMONT'S LEAHY
O'Brien, Dennis
VERMONT'S LEAHY A public man with a passion for privacy Dennis O'Brien n his Vermont home-the family's longtime And there is a Vermont story in...
...When I came here [in 1975] the country was very much at risk and the Senate was in good bipartisan shape," Leahy has lamented...
...He is such a presence important achievement...
...Vermonters, of course, argue And haul up fresh salt water in a pail...
...brandished against Leahy, but it has not stuck, for two reasons...
...His most recent book is All the HalfTruths about Higher Education (Chicago...
...Like so many of his fellow Vermonters, guarding what used to provide artificial limbs for land-mine survivors...
...Leahy thinks government can make a very big difference Very close to his parents and grandparents, Leahy has in people's lives...
...When I leave here, what ney Murray Catholic," not a Berrigan type...
...I trust famprotectiveness toward their three children...
...But they tance of "safe...
...many teats are there on a cow...
...Robert Royal Vermont's junior senator, Republican James Jeffords, has The Catholic Martyrs of the been a staunch supporter of such an object of conservative Twentieth Century, disdain as the National Endowment for the Arts...
...in which people have access to him who have money and Unhouse the hermit crab, the shut-in snail...
...He because 96 percent of his campaign funds came from out of commutes home almost every weekend...
...Jack McMullen, the Senate candiproverbial local perched on the front steps of a nearby house...
...Why do you do these things...
...He's even sponsored a law forbidding schools to sell PBS's "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" and ABC's "This or give away soda pop and other foods of "minimal nutriWeek...
...that preserving the state's dairy farms is as much a conserUnhouse the hermit crab, the shut-in snail, vation issue as a consumer issue...
...Upon the passing shadow of a wing Needless to say, providing pork often comes with a little The hours bring their currency to hand...
...Senator for those truing to make sense of t( Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y...
...Press re- keep her child...
...streak...
...George Aiken is famous for having spent $17.06 during tipersonnel mines, and pledged to remove existing mine his final campaign-for postcards he sent thanking people fields in ten years...
...campaign, a large amount for Vermont but Aiken-sized for Leahy is known as a man of strong emotions, emotions most senatorial contests...
...Those of us who have served here a Commonweal 9 4 June 16, 2000 long time know it does not have to be that way...
...a "socialist") and is everybody's image of a slightly scruffy, 0-8245-1846-2 5.39.95 he, illustrated uncombed radical, even down to his Brooklyn accent...
...Tuttle, REPORTER : No...
...ilies to interpret values for their children...
...But 1992, Leahy secured a one-year moratorium on the export that passion has served the citizens of Vermont and the naof antipersonnel mines...
...problems and for all the idiosyncrasies of the pork barrel, if Step carefully beyond them as they fade you represent a state with a population of only half a million, seniority and the clout to effect special-interest legislation Into the passing shadow of a wing...
...Vermont wonder that the Times had a hard time finding him-or fea- is a dairy state, and Leahy has been indefatigable in deturing him in its daily headlines...
...I am very happy that he voted for the ban on Leahy is married to Marcelle Pomerleau, whose parents partial-birth abortion," she says...
...If you had to choose which kind economy, they say...
...He knows what to do in a chamber that doesn't share his views...
...dants of French Canadians who moved south during the Ruth Charlesworth, among others, commends Leahy for nineteenth century in search of better farming conditions...
...For R. SCOTT APPLEBY Leahy, federal efforts like the school lunch program are sim- The Cushwa Center, University of Notre Dame ple moral responsibilities...
...voted for him-in the general election...
...date supported by the Republican establishment, had only reThe following conversation ensued: cently moved to Vermont...
...It's clear that [Leahy is] a participant in a system Return this urchin underneath the sea...
...Most recently, Leahy has intro- HOMOSEXUALITY IN duced the Innocence Protection Act, designed to make DNA MODERN CATHOLICISM testing available to, and improve legal representation for, Mark D. Jordan death-row inmates...
...He called it a matter of came from Quebec in the 1930s...
...Here we are, the richest nation in Respondents: the world," he said in a recent interview, "a nation which can Dolores Leckey, The Woodstock Center feed not only all its own people but export food across the Robert Royal, The Faith and Reason Institute world...
...In the film, Tuttle deother a sidebar from the New York Times...
...er would not finally change her [EFOIA] lets us know when they mind, but the couple was willdo not...
...SH8 VS...
...What's Leahy's efforts to prevent too The right to privacy has been wrong with encouraging a pregmuch "privacy" in government...
...senatorial sleight of hand...
...create a certain rough balance of power...
...compact...
...Moratoriums were reimposed on export and use...
...The intent of the designation Or bells invisible among the isles, was to make the University of Vermont eligible for research The hours bring their currency to hand funds on issues like pollution and keeping out the lampreys...
...the following year...
...O'Brien, no fan of Republicans anyhow, persuaded VERMONTER: You a relative of his...
...whose political views remain quite unknown to this day, VERMONTER: You a friend of his...
...He says he wishes of food you wanted, Irish or Italian-which would you conservatives actually believed in their own rhetoric...
...Church 7bday and Where It's Headed for a new century Arthur Jones Written by a well-known Catholic journalist and historian, New Catholics for a New Century chronicles the evolution of the Catholic Church and its impact in our world from over a quarter-century ago to present day...
...As a Catholic, supporting abortion rights child was born, adopted, and named "Patrick...
...He says Leahy's Irish-American father ran a printing business in that the Roe v. Wade ruling did not establish a right to abor- Montpelier, the state capital...
...What's the difference between special interest and the public interest...
...Left alone/left out has limits and there are times as a state's attorney made him vividly aware of the imporwhen the balance between the two is problematic...
...The senator notes that when When hauling up salt water in a pail, he first came to Washington he was very much opposed to Step carefully around them where they fade...
...He has gone on to be reelected four times, scoring a crowning victory in November 1998 when he garnered 72 percent of the vote...
...Because Vermonters are conscience...
...In 1998, which country road led to the Leahy farm...
...What we throw away as garbage would feed millions...
...Dennis O'Brien, president emeritus of the University of Rochester, lives in Middlebury, Vermont...
...Leahy's seniority gives Vermont some leverage...
...The school-boy winner of an art contest, his mother, and art teacher were in Washington to receive senatorial commendation...
...trounced his opponent in a radio debate by asking, "How REPORTER : No...
...Henri would follow me around in Washington," Leahy remembers...
...cial-interest group that's going to get my fund-raising letter Leahy's efforts have also had international consequences...
...Bernie, as everyone calls him, is the only In- and Latin America...
...One advantage of December 1997,122 nations signed the Ottawa Convention, being a Vermont senator is that big money is not such a fac- banning the production, transfer, use, and stockpiling of antor...
...Still, Jeff Hollingsworth of the Email: commonground@nplc.org ACU admits that Leahy "knows where the power is and how it works...
...Its concluLeahy house, recalls his son Kevin, was always filled with sions may not persuade every IAs ship01er *f r0doa* priests and religious...
...the seniority system...
...What does society offer in the A concern for individual pri- way of support services for the vacy has been matched by woman carrying the child...
...Vermont does accept some transplants...
...Contains moving dependent member of the House (he sometimes claims to be biographical portraits of key protagonists...
...there are people who can and respect for law...
...A member of the judiciary Committee tions are now performed each year, and since abortion is a during its hearings on the nomination of Judge lucrative business, it also attracts more dubious practitionRobert H. Bork to the Supreme Court, Leahy ers...
...His candidacy rankled a nativist REPORTER: Does this road lead to Senator Leahy's house...
...I can fly up and take off my pay raise, Leahy has since forsworn PAC money and has twelve-piece suit, put on my jeans, and look at that guy never again voted for a pay raise...
...Roe and subsequent rulings have certainly do catch the polarities of Leahy's politics, and have their made abortion legal...
...As one the leading privacy advocates in Congress, Leahy thinks people have a broad right to be left Commonweal I I June 16, 2000 alone...
...If mired a painting of a duck...
...ver and above his interest in nutritional stan- Longtime observers admire his formidable political persona...
...An RCL Company - Commonweal 1 5 June 16, 2000...
...He was not always a balding pillar of the establishment, especially not as a Democrat in a notoriously Republican state...
...But "we brilliant and incisive work...
...We'll give you money opens government electronic on the nomination of to get started if you want to keep records...
...Many more aborcareer...
...He characterizes Leahy as a "John Court- seek justice today because of me...
...Leahy says that his early experience abundance...
...He inquired of the film nearly became fact...
...want influence...
...a • How has the role of women changed throughout the history of the Church...
...ly to Vermont's cows and pork...
...Tuttle from Vermont and, as one can do in Vermont, wasn't sure trounces his stuffy, out-of-touch fictional opponent...
...a bill to make such records confidential...
...Introduced by Pomerleau, the two became close -Nathan D. Mitchell, author friends and Nouwen frequently led retreats at the Leahy of Cult and CQntioversy Cloth S25.00 household...
...He led the congressional fight Say We'll help you...
...During our interview in the Russell Building, Conference Committee voted 14-0 against the idea...
...Henri Nouwen has been an especially important of his arguments...
...What can we look forward to as the number of priests declines...
...he jokes...
...With biparti- the Source of Our Disputes" san support, Leahy has sponsored a wide range of nutri- by tion, hunger-prevention, and conservation programs...
...a theme in Leahy's career...
...In is private is a personal and political passion for Leahy...
...Midwestern senators eventually awakened to this piece of geographical legerdemain and demanded its reversal...
...But the search for compromise has Alfred Nicol gotten harder over the years...
...dards, protection of privacy, open government, He works the crowd one-on-one and ends up as a master and his loyalty to constituents, Leahy considers of ceremonies raffling off feed, farm equipment, and maple O his work to ban the use of land mines his most syrup...
...who came to Vermont to find work in the granite quarries...
...Leahy's brother-in-law, Father Claude for material comfort-I do live comfortably-but I really Pomerleau, C.S.C., a professor of political science at the Uni- have wanted to have my life make a difference...
...the his neighbor, John O'Brien (no relation...
...as champion of the federal school-lunch program, he President Clinton has asserted that abortion should be wants to make sure that no one is "left out" of America's "safe, legal, and rare...
...In a demographic Read for meaning that meandering, showdown, California would get all the government For bits of weathered shell buried in sand...
...It's one of thousands of cases you could point out in which a member of Congress does something for an interest group which would end, in this case, helping a constituency affected [by] the price consumers pay for a product," Eisner says...
...video rental records should be subpoenaed...
...Helen Alvare, spokesperson for the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, notes that the number of maternal morhe right to privacy has been a theme in Leahy's talities has actually risen sharply since Roe...
...idea of there being a serious Leahy antagonist...
...Sena- teeth of the firmest opposition...
...Our overall question is, how do the spethe Aquarium cial-interest deals congressmen make help the public interest...
...ican Society of Newspaper Edi- Judge Robert H. Bork He went on to recount how a tors, Leahy said the act protects to the Supreme Court, couple he knew was willing to "the right of Americans to know Leahy became incensed pay the costs of pregnancy for what their government is do- when the proposal was made a woman who did not choose to ing-and not doing...
...Washed by a sun the polished stone beguiles...
...This is the place state and because he had just voted for a 25 percent Senate where I feel most at home...
...Reception Following the Lecture By common designation, Leahy is a liberal...
...Often Leahy comes to the USCC to suggest a legislative initiative, as was the case in the senator's the silence of sodom effort to ban land mines...
...The author answers these and other questions that prevail in the minds of sixtytwo million Catholics...
...With simplicity and clear examples, Jones describes the diversity of Catholic teaching and belief...
...We'll pay all for the Electronic Freedom of In- A member of expenses, and we have a good formation Act [EFOIA], which the Judiciary Committee family for the child if that's what became law in 1996...
...New Catholics then focuses on the positive future of our nation's community of parishes, priests, and lay people...
...In a speech to the Amer- the baby...
...Ruth Charlesworth, director of If Patrick Leahy's political polarities are privacy and care the Respect Life Office for the Diocese of Burlington, and a for those left out-issues on which he is willing to stand up Leahy critic, points out that "the church teaches that human to those both to his left and to his right-these interests have life begins at the moment of conception...
...tion as a "Great Lake" but not before the University of Return this urchin underneath the sea...
...Many there was a fifteen-minute interlude while the senator ad- of Leahy's usual allies in the Senate were also opposed...
...Aiken, however, suddenly announced his retirement, leaving the Republican nomination to Vermont's lone member of the House of Representatives, Richard Mallary...
...But just how "safe" is open to dispute...
...He has :l Comprehensive World History voted with the Clinton administration more than any other Historical surveys of eighteen politiRepublican senator...
...When the Northeast Dairy tors in large states can hardly hope to meet 1 percent of their Compact was proposed in 1995, the House members of the constituents...
...His mother's parthat Senator Leahy has not listened to the church's teaching ents, Peter and Vincenza Zambon, were Italian immigrants on this matter...
...Not surprisingly, the longer he has Ponder over tracings as they're made, stayed in office, the more he has come to like it...
...Theodore M. Hesburgh President Emeritus, University of Notre Dame ISBN 0-88347-455-7 Hardcover $21.95 Call 1 -877-275-4725 to place your order or order via e-mail: cservice a rcl-enterprises.com ThomasMore® MENTION THIS AD AND RECEIVE A 30 PERCENT DISCOUNT...
...or above voting approval rating...
...Tall, thin-lipped, and balding, the carefully east Dairy Compact, a price floor for New England dairy spoken liberal Democrat is a regular on news programs like farmers...
...Friends and acquaintances marvel at the stead, he notes, they want to control textbooks in the schools, closeness of his relationship with Marcelle, and his fierce "regulate everything from TV to your bedroom...
...One, a headline from the Rutland Her- years earlier, Tuttle had played himself in a film produced by ald predicting his sure defeat in his 1974 Senate race...
...Leahy, however, is not a pro-choice absolutist...
...A series of technical changes to the Leahy blames much of the problem on the high cost of weapons (so that they would self-destruct) has also been adcampaigning...
...It has grown to $15 million...
...Having recruited ing mechanisms under the same justification, not only in Lugar to the cause, Leahy mustered enough Democrats to dairy but in other industry," objected Democratic Senator break the filibuster in exchange for Dole's support of the dairy Herbert Kohl of Wisconsin...
...The cost vote, but indicated it would restrict mine use and promised has gone up...
...What should one think of Leahy's tending so assiduousAnd muse upon their tracings as they're made...
...EFOIA during its hearings you want...
...was amused by the very new spiritual awakening...
...Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) consistently gives him a 90 percent Friday, June 23, 7:30 P.M...
...Then he is off to something like the Franklin County Dairy Co-op...
...Pomer- that there are millions of children who have benefited from leau describes Leahy as an "irreverent Catholic," which our nutrition programs, who have jobs because of what seems to be standard equipment for anyone with an Irish we've done...
...Leahy is skeptical...
...evolving spiritual consciousness of In fact, there seem to be few colleagues or political ob- our time and an invaluable resource• servers who are eager to find fault with Leahy...
...I want my children to be showy things' but for the smaller, overlooked issues that proud of what I've done, to say that I acted with integrity, can make a tremendous difference in people's lives...
...There could be leases tell us when federal agen- that Bork's video rental records no guarantee that the birth mothcies do something right, but should be subpoenaed...
...In 1995 he received 100 per- Georgetown University, Washington, DC cent approval from ADA and 0 percent from the American Phone: 212-431-7825 Fax: 212-274-9786 Conservative Union (ACU...
...CHURCH TWAY and where it's headed "This book is for anyone who cares about what the Catholic Church in America is today and is personally concerned about where it is going in aP i u n ' C the future...
...But The bells invisible among the isles Vermont's senior senator rarely comes away from such nePour forth this stir of cells to simply be, gotiations empty-handed...
...A person of ready humor, Leahy routinely makes allies everywhere and even has friends across the Senate's most contested battle lines...
...In 1989, Congress passed the "Leahy in person and on the platform that one wonders whether War Victims Fund," a $5 million annual program to aid war one can get to the private man behind the practiced politivictims...
...He has been a heavy hitter senator, Leahy figures, he has met personally legislatively, securing laws that benefit Vermonters in the L about 20 percent of all Vermont voters...
...Leahy connected Respect for privacy also shapes the couple with a woman who the senator's defense of the legal wished to give up her baby...
...People ask how's this going to affect the spe- vanced...
...Lake Champlain lost its designaWashed by a sun the tumbled stone beguiles...
...It can't be just ticing their religion...
...ing to risk it...
...There are versity of Portland (Oregon), admires Leahy's common sense people alive today because of me...
...It's scarier than hell," he says...
...His answer was prefound himself in opposition to dictable, but I thought sincere...
...Commonweal 1 3 June 16, 2000 we allow this kind of price-fixing scheme to make its way to the presidency, made an appearance at Vermont's Saint through Congress, there will be no way to prevent in a log- Albans Dairy Co-op and saw Leahy's bill as a way into the ical way any other group of states setting up similar price-fix- hearts and votes of New England farmers...
...In tomorrow...
...So milk prices went up and the dairy farmers in VerRitual Pantoum for Changing mont were happy...
...They're trading on that in return for things Pour forth this stir of cells to simply be, that may not help people...
...Leahy-no sup- How far "privacy" can justify the taking of fetal life is preporter of Bork by a Vermont country mile-later sponsored cisely the question, she said...
...A reporter from cides to run for Congress: "I've spent most of my life in the the Times was on his way to interview the senior senator barn, now it's time to spend time in the House...
...As it happened, Bob Dole was running for president game," says Peter Eisner, managing director of The Center and he wanted a farm bill, but the Democrats were prepared for Public Integrity in Washington, a nonpartisan, nonprofto filibuster the GOP version...
...Every Catholic should f-&-k...John Carr, director of the office of social justice and world read this book," peace for the United States Catholic Conference, commended -Bruce Bawer, author of Stealing Jesus www Leahy for being accessible and approachable on the church's social-justice concerns...
...Inpick...
...Leahy on the tube and tell him to snap it up...
...Catholic Common Ground Initiative Lecture f local dairy farms entrench Leahy in Vermont "The Substance of Things and New England, his work on the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Hoped For: Common Ground and I demonstrates his national scope...
...nfl o ~~»ua influence...
...Not to provide for our own children would be just Open to the Public immoral...
...Available at bookstores...
...Over the course of his tenure as a U.S...
...eahy's sense of family fits Vermont's small-scale In a history which numbers 1,851 senators, Leahy is one of politics...
...denounced from the pulpit...
...He knows everybody's name...
...The research and writing of this profile were funded by a grant from the Lilly Endowment.Canvassing a prospective voter Commonweal 1 0 June 16, 2000 tional value" when federally funded lunches are being served...
...A voracious reader and a fan of Teil- reader, but even the unconvinced hard de Chardin, Leahy has reread The Phenomenon of Man may admire the clarity of Jordan's prose and the sophistication many times...
...The fund has been cian...
...Leahy had $1 million in his war chest for the '98 to stop it altogether by 2006...
...Leahy's subsequent margin of victory over Tuttle-who VERMONTER : Never heard of him...
...The right to abortion...
...What is good for Vermont's dairy farm- Announcing the ers, the senator is sometimes accused of thinking, is good Second Annual for the nation...
...In 1998, for example, Leahy attached a rider to a bill designating Vermont's Lake ChamLike bits of weathered shell buried in sand, plain one of the Great Lakes...
...Two I ical life...
...When Leahy, now sixty, first announced his candidacy for the Senate in 1974, it was an act of considerable bravado...
...Any parent knows that filling up on soda before lunch is not the way to encourage children to eat a healthy lunch," Leahy explained...
...Overnight the vote was reversed...
...unmasked...
...Then there is the contrast between cal regimes under which martyrLeahy's image and that of Vermont's lone congressman, dom occurred, including the USSR Bernard Sanders...
...McMullen's flunking that test VERMONTER : You got an appointment with him...
...tree farm-U.S...
...Criticized in his 1992 campaign that affect his person and his policies in complex ways...
...Furthermore, to as- I asked Leahy whether there was anything government sure privacy rights for health records, Leahy has frequently should do to make abortion rare...
...Because Leahy is very much "at home" in Vermont, it is no Any Vermont politician had better know cows...
...For all its And read for meaning that meandering...
...the Clinton administration...
...All politics is local...
...sense of humor...
...Senator Patrick J. Leahy has on Leahy's opponent in the '98 election was seventy-ninedisplay only two clippings from his long polit- year-old dairy farmer turned amateur actor, Fred Tuttle...
...Well, you 0-8245-1841-1 515.95 ph might try [Senator] Orrin Hatch [R-Utah]," Moynihan said, "but, on the other hand, he is a very polite Mormon...
...On October 18, 1999, Leahy cast his 10,000th roll-call vote...
...left out (No...
...that decision...
...led to Tuttle's 20 percent victory margin in the primary, and REPORTER : No...
...VERMONT'S LEAHY A public man with a passion for privacy Dennis O'Brien n his Vermont home-the family's longtime And there is a Vermont story in that...
...Leahy beamed has not been an easy decision for Leahy, and he has been as he contemplated that outcome...
...Taxes are too high, regulations are home of his very traditional Catholic grandmother in Friuli, too strict, and bureaucracy blocks the free energy of the Italy, on several occasions...
...Republican conservatives want to "get govbeen particularly attentive to the Italian side, visiting the ernment off our backs...
...Despite Mallary's high name recognition across the state, Leahy, then a county prosecutor, won and became the first and only Democratic senator ever elected from Vermont...
...In his Vermont campaigns the dreaded "L" word has been r4aq New Releases...
...only 21 to reach the 10,000 club...
...Pat is not for 'big will they say about Pat Leahy...
...r " [A]s Jordan insists, factsshould all be able to agree that a system that may sentence and the rhetorical devices used one innocent person to death for every seven it executes has to conceal them-need to be no place in a civilized society...
...Leahy, however, was determined to help rescue Vermont's "The milk story shows that Leahy knew how to play the farmers...
...Fred Tuttle to run in the primary against McMullen...
...The United States abstained in the UN who had bothered to put up posters on his behalf...
...Jordan's book offers Leahy was educated in Catholic schools: Saint Michael's a clear, candid and courageous discussion of homosexuality in C"J'7 College in Winooski, Vermont, and Georgetown Law...
...Milk, went the subtext, is always the better choice...
...Today the country is doing very well, and we sometimes break down too much along party lines...
...But you've probably seen fending local interests through such legislation as the NorthLeahy on TV...
...Leahy's genuine Ver- Diarmuid O'Mruz mu mont accent (several of them), height, sonorous voice, and Religion in Exile conservative sartorial manner prevent any label of radical An inspiring contribution to the from sticking...
...The modern Catholicism...
...He would say, "You are always so busy every The University of Chicago Press day with one item or another, one vote after another...
...To the extent there are "intion on demand...
...willing to leave their neighbors alone, the Leahys, Zambons, Commonweal 12 June 16, 2000 and Pomerleaus have been able to thrive while freely prac- Leahy's answer: "You only live one life...
...this was extended for three years tion well...
...HE CROSSROAD PUBLISHING COMPANY If the "L" word defines the political "left," Leahy's "left" leanings could more accurately be resloganized: "Left alone 0""i L Eightli Avenuc, Stiitc I' I. Lent• Yu k. \1' IOfll} At cuur b kutore or call 1-800-395-0690, (Yes...
...11 New Catholics for a New Century: NEW CATHOLICS The U.S...
...As for the Vermont senator's justification of legalized became incensed when the proposal was made that Bork's abortion on privacy grounds, Alvare expressed skepticism...
...Republican Richard Lugar, it organization that examines public service and ethics-rechairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, also aspiring lated issues with an eye to how money influences politics...
...Vermont received a $1 million research grant...
...First, Vermont Republicans are themselves quite liberal...
...nant teenager to have her child...
...roots in Leahy the Vermonter as well as Leahy the Catholic...
...People of good conscience can and will disagree about the death penalty," Leahy says...
...His vote to override President Bill Clin- digenous" Catholics in Vermont, famous for its rock-ribbed ton's veto of the so-called "partial-birth" abortion bill cost Republicans and Protestants, they are largely the descenLeahy the endorsement of NOW in his 1998 reelection bid...
...He was then only thirty-four, and he would be running against the revered, eighty-four-year-old Republican icon, George Aiken...
...It deeply saddens me deep roots in his family's Catholic history...
...largesse...
Vol. 127 • June 2000 • No. 12
