I’m supposed to be figuring out how to get a new driver’s license, but instead am skimming the news articles on Congress, the courts and Terry Schiavo. I’m less interested in the ethical and medical matters revolving this case, and more interested in how Congress got involved, the partisanship around the matter, and just the general unusual politics of having Congress get involved so personally in the life of this one woman.

From this article in the Times, it appears that the Democratic vote in the House was split. The House and the Senate approved legislation to have a federal court review the case. Voting yes were 156 Republicans and 47 Democrats, while 53 Democrats and 5 Republicans voted no.

Both sides are using every congressional tool at their disposal.

The Democrats’ refusal to allow the bill to pass without a roll-call vote prevented the House from taking up the measure early Sunday afternoon and sent Republican leaders scurrying to summon lawmakers scattered for the Easter recess back to Washington to provide a quorum.

House rules required that such a vote could not occur until Monday, so the Republican leaders suspended the vote until Monday morning so they had time to assemble at least 218 of the 435 House members.

The intensity of the feelings by political leaders and the unusual Congressional strategies are remarkable.

The mood in the Capitol was subdued as members of both parties gathered to plot strategy. Some said the atmosphere reminded them of a vote on going to war, colored by a life-and-death decision.

“I have been here 13 years,” said Representative Donald Manzullo, Republican of Illinois, “and I have never seen anything like this before.”

The session was extraordinary for a number of reasons, including its falling on a Sunday and in the middle of the Easter recess for Congress.

I just did a quick surf around the blogosphere. Instapundit points me to Sissy Willis who has some posts on the topic, including one post on a pro-Terry column in the WSJ by James Q. Wilson. Willis pointed to Virginia Postrel who was talking about congressional overreach on MSNBC, referring to Schiavo and the baseball hearings. So, the libertarians and the social conservative wings of the Republican party are in conflict around Schiavo. The small government types don’t want gov’t involved at all.