Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney spoke out against 2005’s Republican-led effort to intervene in the Teri Schiavo case:

TAMPA — He’s campaigning hard for support from Republican social conservatives, but presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Saturday he disagreed with the government’s intervention in the Terri Schiavo case.

“I think it’s probably best to leave these kinds of matters in the hands of the courts,” Romney said in a television interview airing today.

Polls showed most voters, including most Republicans, opposed Congress and the Florida Legislature intervening in 2005 to bypass court rulings and force the profoundly brain-damaged Pinellas woman’s feeding tube to be reinserted.

Romney’s position puts him at odds with a portion of the Republican base he is courting aggressively and with former Gov. Jeb Bush, many of whose key advisers and Florida donors are backing the former Massachusetts governor.

“I generally think that it’s not a good idea for courts to legislate. Nor is it great idea for legislatures to adjudicate in a specific circumstance,” Romney said in the taped interview that airs at 11 a.m. on Bay News 9 in the Tampa Bay area.