Copyright 2000 Times Publishing Company
St.
Petersburg Times
September 07, 2000, Thursday, 0 South
Pinellas Edition
SECTION: NATIONAL; IN BRIEF; Pg. 3A
LENGTH: 482 words
HEADLINE:
House GOP plans vote today on estate tax repeal
SOURCE: Compiled from Times Wires
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
BODY:
House Republican leaders, virtually conceding they lack the votes to
override President Clinton's veto of the estate tax repeal
bill, will push ahead today with a vote they believe will put many Democrats on
the spot and demonstrate the GOP's commitment to tax cuts.
"Any Democrat
that flip-flops on this issue to keep the death tax alive will surely face the
voters' wrath on Election Day," said Rep. J.C. Watts of Oklahoma, the
fourth-ranking House GOP leader.
In a 279-136 vote in June, 65 Democrats
and one independent joined all 213 Republicans voting as the House agreed to
phase out inheritance taxes at a cost of $ 105-billion over 10 years.
While the margin was just over the two-thirds margin needed to override
a veto, Democratic leaders say that 11 of their members who missed the vote
support Clinton's action and that at least 10 more would be persuaded to switch
sides.
Even if the House did vote to override the veto, a two-thirds
Senate margin is also required, and the 59-39 Senate vote to pass the bill in
July was eight short of that.
FBI offers advice on averting school
violence
Educators must do a better job of detecting signs of potential
violence in students but they should be careful not to overreact to perceived
threats by simply expelling students and exacerbating the risk of real violence,
FBI officials warned Wednesday.
In a two-year study of school violence,
the FBI listed dozens of behavioral problems that could be telltale signs of
potential violence. They include a macabre sense of humor, a fascination with
violence-filled entertainment or an affinity for "inappropriate role models such
as Hitler (or) Satan."
FBI officials stressed that their report is not
meant to represent a profile of the next rampaging school shooter. Rather, they
said, the study of 18 episodes of school violence should be used by educators to
develop a systematic way of assessing how seriously to regard threats and how
best to deal with them.
Hearing held on bill allowing cameras in court
A bill aimed at cracking open federal courtroom doors to television,
radio and photo coverage got a Senate subcommittee hearing Wednesday, but a
chief sponsor of the proposed legislation acknowledged it faces major hurdles,
among them the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
Sen. Charles
Grassley, R-Iowa and chairman of a subcommittee on courts oversight, said the
bill he and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., introduced seeks "to let the sun shine
in on our federal courts."
But Edward Becker, a federal appellate judge
from Philadelphia, testified that the U.S. Judicial Conference, the federal
judiciary's policymaking body, vigorously opposes the bill.
Becker
questioned the educational value of having broadcast coverage of federal trials
and appellate hearings, contending that the public most often would see only
snippets of such proceedings.
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September 7, 2000 
