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"There are some congressmen that are trying to stop this bill," Mrs. Schindler said, speaking to reporters outside the hospice where Terri is being kept. "Please don't use my daughter's suffering for your own personal agenda."

House Democrats blocked efforts to have the Senate version of the bill passed on a voice vote. As a result, Republican leaders were required to get at least 218 members to return to Washington on Palm Sunday in order to have a quorum so they could convene the House for a vote.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) opposed the bill, calling it "a dangerously reckless way to deal with one of the most serious issues we will ever confront.

"This bill would place a federal judge in the middle of this case after the state courts have adjudicated it," Nadler said. "After everything is over, after all the facts have been established to the satisfaction of the courts, all the appeals exhausted, the writ of certiorari denied by the Supreme Court of the United States, now we're going to start all over again.

"We have never, ever done such a thing in the history of this country," Nadler added, "and we should not start now.

Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) supported the bill and used Nadler's own words to refute his opposition to the proposal.

"I'm a little bit puzzled listening to my friend from New York," Sensenbrenner said.

"At (Volume) 151 Congressional Record, page H-1599, the gentleman from New York, Mr. Nadler, said, 'If a person thinks the court in a state is depriving someone of civil rights, they can go into federal court,'" Sensenbrenner quoted. "And at Volume 150, Congressional Record, on page H-6580, the gentleman from New York noted that without federal courts, 'obviously the progress we have witnessed in the area of civil rights would have been, at the very least stymied, and most likely prevented altogether.'

"All this bill does is to allow the parents of Terri Schiavo to go into federal court to adjudicate her federal constitutional and legal rights," Sensenbrenner concluded, "no more, and no less."

In order to comply with House rules, the vote could not be taken until after 12:00 a.m. (Eastern) Monday. Shortly after midnight, lawmakers voted 208 to 53 in favor of the legislation. Less than an hour later, a senior White House aide told reporters that President Bush had signed the bill immediately when he received it.

''We feel every moment is urgent," David Gibbs III, the attorney for Bob and Mary Schindler told reporter earlier Sunday. "We are considering every second as precious in terms of saving Terri."

Gibbs had already written the emergency appeal asking the federal district court in Tampa to issue an injunction ordering Terri's feeding tube reinserted while it reviews her case. A computer program assigns the judges for such requests and would deliver the appeal to the judge automatically when it was received. Gibbs told reporters he hopes the court will act with the same speed as Congress and the president, considering that Terri's life hangs in the balance.

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