WASHINGTON — Scrambling to pass anti-abortion legislation before they recess for fall congressional elections, House Republicans on Tuesday won passage of a bill that would make it a federal crime to evade one state's parental consent laws by taking a minor to another state for an abortion.
But in a mark of the majority party's struggles with its "values" agenda, Senate Republicans may run out of time to vote on the measure before lawmakers leave town at the end of the week.
That would leave Republicans with few trophies to show their socially conservative base as they try to motivate voters in the final six weeks of the fiercely contested 2006 campaign.
Some strategists fear that failure to win final passage of the bill could hamper efforts to spur turnout of a reliably Republican voting bloc -- which might mean the difference in key races around the country.
"This could be a problem," said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion group that is working to mobilize female voters opposed to abortion in six states seen as central to the fight for control of Congress.
Dannenfelser's warning came just days after national evangelical leaders met in Washington to intensify their push to persuade conservative voters to look past Republican legislative failures and go to the polls in November to support the party's candidates.
The bill that the House passed Tuesday by a vote of 264 to 153 was the latest initiative in a more than decade-long campaign to chip away at abortion rights.
But aides to senior Senate Republicans said Tuesday that they could not be sure the measure would make it to the floor for a vote.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), who is fending off attacks by Democrats that he has presided over a "do-nothing" Congress, is under pressure in the session's waning days to pass crucial legislation funding the military, setting up tribunals for suspected terrorists and strengthening border security.
Faced with these priorities, consideration of the parental consent bill may have to wait until a lame-duck session after November's election.
Republican congressional leaders had not planned to be in this position six weeks before election day. In the aftermath of the party's 2004 electoral triumphs, in which socially conservative voters played a large role, the GOP agenda included initiatives to ban gay marriage and flag burning and to further limit abortions.
