The issue has prompted hospitals in several states to seek assistance from sympathetic lawmakers.

Presidential advisers explained that negotiations with some sympathetic anti-abortion lawmakers on a compromise that would have enabled Mr. Bush to avoid vetoing the measure collapsed.

That brought threats of legal action from welfare advocacy groups and some sympathetic lawmakers, who maintain that fingerprinting amounts to a change in welfare eligibility standards and therefore requires state legislation.

The words of activists, sympathetic lawmakers and journalists can never adequately represent the feelings and situations of homeless people.

Those efforts included a campaign to persuade sympathetic lawmakers, including Democrats, to convey their support to the White House.

Meanwhile, they have methodically worked to whitewash their image, using public relations firms and sympathetic lawmakers to justify the group's heinous tactics.

Campaigning against legislation that would force companies to account for the cost of stock options, corporate executives, lobbyists and sympathetic lawmakers have proclaimed options to be a pillar of the middle class.

On Capitol Hill, the grandmothers pleaded with sympathetic lawmakers, who vowed to block legislation to make Elian an American citizen.

In an editorial after the election, The Times described him as a "moderately conservative Republican" who was seen by his colleagues as "a thoroughly competent, sympathetic and responsible lawmaker."

Throughout the Reagan years auto makers and coal-related interests, aided by sympathetic lawmakers, succeeded in blocking new clean air legislation.