Dodd To Hillary And Obama: Will You Make Good On Your Promise To Support My FISA Filibuster?
This morning, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced on the Senate floor that the Senate FISA renewal bill containing immunity for the telecoms would go to the floor on Monday. The move, which many expected, dismayed opponents of telecom immunity.
Now the campaign of Senator Chris Dodd, who has promised to put a hold on and filibuster the bill, has just sent out an email to supporters containing a challenge for the other Dem Senators running for President: Will you stick by your promise to publicly support my filibuster of the bill?
Back when Dodd first announced his planned filibuster of the measure in October, the Dem Senators running for President came under heavy pressure to say they'd publicly support it. Senators Clinton, Obama and Biden all said they would.
Now the Dodd campaign is reaffirming that he is going to come back to D.C. and stage his filibuster -- and it's asking people to put a new round of pressure on the other Senators to stand with him. From the Dodd campaign's email from Dodd Internet guru Tim Tagaris:
Remember when this all started playing out? A lot of people rushed to send out strongly worded press releases about how committed they were to "supporting a filibuster."They'll have a chance to show they are true to their word.
Call or email the Senators that pledged their opposition to this bill to support the Dodd Amendment and a filibuster if necessary. And ask them to be there with Dodd when it counts.
The Dodd campaign is clearly mindful of the fact that when Dodd announced his filibuster in October, it gave his campaign a boost in fundraising and media attention. And it'ss surely aware that the same thing might happen again if and when the bill comes to the floor and Dodd takes a stand against it. As it did last time, the campaign is again looking to use the issue to highlight the fact that he's been out front on this in a way his Dem rivals haven't. The full email after the jump.
Late Update: Senators Leahy and Wyden have now commented on this. Their statements after the jump.
Leahy:
"The Senate should act to add protections for Americans' rights that were not included in the Protect America Act. I have been consulting with Leader Reid and Chairman Rockefeller about how to proceed, and support the decision to proceed by regular order. Senator Reid is right to bring this legislation to the floor and is doing so in a way that allows consideration of the many improvements made by the bill reported by the Senate Judiciary Committee. I oppose retroactive immunity for the telephone companies that would eliminate the courts as a check on the illegality of the warrantless wiretapping of Americans that the administration secretly engaged in for almost six years. I will continue to work to ensure that the government is held accountable for its actions and that those whose rights were infringed not be left out in the cold. I look forward to a vigorous debate next week and to seeking to make the final bill considered by the Senate as good as it can be."
Wyden:
I want to say a word about the process which the distinguished senate majority leader has jus touched on. I was one of two in the senate intelligence committee to oppose the intelligence committee's version of the legislation. I am strongly opposed to granting telecommunications companies total retroactive immunity when they have been accused of wrongdoing in the president's wireless wiretapping legislation. It was the major reasonable why i opposed the legislation.I do, however, respect Senator Reid's decision to hold the debate on this legislation under the regular senate rules. certainly, the distinguished majority leader has been under a lot of pressure from all sides to change the rules that in one way might favor one side or the other, but i think the majority leader has made the right decision by insisting that this debate go by the book.
I've had the chance now to work with the distinguished majority leader for more than a quarter of a century. I know how much respect he has for the senate and for this institution. He firmly believes in the committee process. He firmly believes in the senate rules and traditions, and he worked to carry those beliefs out as both the minority whip and the minority leader.
Dodd campaign email:
Dear Tim, Today, that FISA fight we've all been waiting for begins -- and it's time to separate the leaders from the capitulators.In a few hours, Majority Leader Harry Reid will ask for something called a "motion to proceed" on FISA, effectively disregarding Chris Dodd's "hold" on the bill.
It's unfortunate that he chose to go this route, to introduce a bill including retroactive immunity when another route could have been chosen just as easily.
So ... that means Chris Dodd will start by introducing an amendment to strip retroactive immunity out of the bill.
But if that doesn't work, he will do all he can to stop this bill that threatens our security, and that may include a "filibuster."
Remember when this all started playing out? A lot of people rushed to send out strongly worded press releases about how committed they were to "supporting a filibuster."
They'll have a chance to show they are true to their word.
Call or email the Senators that pledged their opposition to this bill to support the Dodd Amendment and a filibuster if necessary. And ask them to be there with Dodd when it counts.
http://chrisdodd.com/filibuster
You don't demonstrate leadership in the footnotes of a press release, or parroting responses from focus groups.
Leadership is demonstrated through action.
Tim Tagaris
Chris Dodd for President
Comments (39)
po wrote on December 14, 2007 2:55 PM:Go Dodd! Leadership through action, what a concept -- pne I'm dying to witness in action this year. And I say unto them all: lead and ye shall be rewarded. But cave (again), and bear the consequences (the true extent of which you have no idea).
billjpa wrote on December 14, 2007 3:01 PM:The fix is in! Reid is simply a disgrace.
DonnaG wrote on December 14, 2007 3:03 PM:Yes, Senator Dodd, call in those promises to back your action. What is Reid thinking and who is he working for?
MarcNYC wrote on December 14, 2007 3:12 PM:And, after they get this thing rammed through, I will get an email from Chuck Schumer explaining what a great thing the bill is and telling me that I need to send money to the DSCC. I will continue to delete those emails as I have been since Mukasey was confirmed.
Crust wrote on December 14, 2007 3:13 PM:Is this the first hold that Senate Majority Leader Reid has not honored? Why would he not honor this hold by a member of his own party while, for example, honoring Republican Tom Coburn's hold to stop a bill restoring public access to presidential records? Is it really so important to Reid to provide retroactive amnesty to telecoms for crimes they may have committed to assist the Bush administration? For shame, for shame.
brewmn wrote on December 14, 2007 3:15 PM:"Is it really so important to Reid to provide retroactive amnesty to telecoms for crimes they may have committed to assist the Bush administration?"
He's just doing what he's paid to do. Oh, and he's a fucking scumbag.
phidda wrote on December 14, 2007 3:16 PM:This seems like a no brainer for the candidates. Free media, and they get to be on the side defending the constitution. Besides, who doesn't hate the telecom industry?
JohnW1141 wrote on December 14, 2007 3:18 PM:Christ, a Democrat that may stand and fight, what will they think of next?
If Dodd starts filibustering, as a sign of support, I'll send him some money, even if its only $20.00.
jdw wrote on December 14, 2007 3:24 PM:It's so embarassing this even gets to the floor. That Reid allows it means he'll be joining DiFi and Rocky to vote with the Republicans on it. We already know indy Lying Lieb will. It's not like the Republicans need to get many more Dems to jump ship. :(
John
I'm with ya, John.
Crust wrote on December 14, 2007 3:30 PM:Digby has summarizes the situation:
So, it's looking very much like the big corporations are going to get retroactive immunity for helping the government defy the constitution and break the law. The Democratic leadership either agrees philosophically that these wealthy telecoms are innocent victims (which sets a very interesting precedent)or they feel it is too politically risky to take a stand. Whatever the motive, it appears that they are willing to give the Republicans another victory. Evidently, they believe this will make them look better in the eyes of the voters.Keith wrote on December 14, 2007 3:37 PM:
What has Reid said about this? This un-fu*king believable....
Anonymous wrote on December 14, 2007 3:38 PM:Senator Reid has richly earned a primary challenge in 2010.
Let's kick this quisling traitor out of the party like we did with Lieberman!
convincer wrote on December 14, 2007 4:13 PM:Reid clearly thinks his critics are powerless to inflict any pain; what if progressives, and the netroots, were to seek to punish him where he lives? No other state is so dependent on ONE industry...one that people don't need...one that is morally dubious...and one that is very conscious of public relations? No more GAMING for those who GAME away my rights!
JubleJohnson wrote on December 14, 2007 4:13 PM:Why don't you get it, Reid's allegiance is to the Corp not you & I.So stop with the wailing wonder"what's wrong with Reid".This ain't the first time he has sold us down the drain & yet many are still clueless as to his agenda.
nogo war wrote on December 14, 2007 4:25 PM:When Dodd takes to the floor he is...in that Texas Hold'em philosophy..
All In...
Who will follow?
Reid here now
http://www.c-span.org/watch/cs_cspan2_wm.asp?Cat=TV&Code=CS2
Reid kicks the can..today...just saw it..
next week...
I am so fucking tire of "bi-partisan" and Reid glamorizing folks like Specter and Bond..
Wyden up now..saying Fuck you Reid...of course without saying that...
Diverik wrote on December 14, 2007 4:42 PM:Dodd has an email form on his website to email Senators Obama, Clinton and Biden and urge them to honor their pledges to support his filibuster of telecom immunity.
http://action.chrisdodd.com/t/41/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=2050
SocraticGadfly wrote on December 14, 2007 4:47 PM:Harry Reid: Gussied-up Tom Daschle.
The answer? Stop voting for Democrats. Green Party votes are only irrelevant if you believe that.
nogo war wrote on December 14, 2007 5:35 PM:Hey Green Guy...
Here in Colorado where we see Udall as another Salazar..
Green will get votes..
Not everywhere..
because there are real Dem Candidates.
Reid is a DINO. Leahy is ... not much better, really. Pelosi is as bad as Reid.
I keep wondering what kind of hold Bush and Cheney have over the Dems in Congress: drugs, bribery, intercourse with underage animals of the same sex?
Joe wrote on December 14, 2007 6:22 PM:I am just so furious about this telecom mess, I can hardly see straight. But the reason for writing is to ask this forum a question/advice.
Can anyone explain to me, anyone anywhere with an opinion, what possible basis is there for supporting immunity??
I mean this. Any talking point will do. I really wish to understand. I don't care how convoluted, how tenous, how baseless the proferred opinion may be. I just can't wrap my head around any arguement for this and won't help in hearing the alternate reasons for supporting retroactive immunity.
thanx
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The Democrats lost my vote when they confirmed Mukasey as Attorney General. Nader is right.
We need multiple parties. I will not vote for the Democratic nominee in 2008.
I am a Democrat and am so embarrassed by the acts of the democrats in Congress!! I do understand how the congress works...I understand that the democrats have just a bare majority, and they must have 60 votes to pass legislation, but must they just go belly-up on every vote? I would love to see them show a little backbone, and put up a fight of some kind instead of just tamely handing the Republicans anything they want. Show the public some fight. We voted for you and put you where you are. Go to the Senate and House floors and at least get mad and let us know and let the world know that you are fighting for the right things. Show some feeling...show some anger. Let us know you are fighting for what you believe. It looks to us like you are just too timid to do your jobs. Are you?
The Facilitatrix wrote on December 15, 2007 12:18 AM:Joe,
"Can anyone explain to me, anyone anywhere with an opinion, what possible basis is there for supporting immunity??"
Here's Feinstein pro immunity:
"In a statement at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is considering legislation to extend the Bush administration's electronic surveillance program, Feinstein said the companies should not be 'held hostage to costly litigation in what is essentially a complaint about administration activities.'" [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/09/BA13T97BN.DTL]
But she's apparently backing away from that:
"Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who sits on the Judiciary and Intelligence committees, said she is re-evaluating her support for retroactive legal immunity. She voted to approve it as part of the Intelligence Committee bill."
[http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Committee_delays_consideration_telecom_immunity_1108.html]
Dan Lundgren:
"The plan, Mr. Lungren charged, would tie the hands of the N.S.A. and give 'greater protection to Osama bin Laden than an American citizen' by preventing intelligence officials from disseminating intercepts that had been inadvertently collected."
[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/16/washington/16nsa.html?bl&ex=1195621200&en=5392d048c50df737&ei=5087]
Kenneth Wanstein, Asst. AG at DoJ:
"Wainstein argued that the immunity provisions were necessary because the telecommunications companies were 'operating on good faith, on assurances from the government. If there is fault here, it's the fault in the legal analysis and the decisions made by the government.' Moreover, Wainstein said, such lawsuits would interfere with the government's ability to cooperate with telecommunications companies in the future by instilling in companies a clear incentive to be risk-averse."
[http://www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/4077/1/514]
I don't think the arguments for immunity get any better than these, and these are not very good reasons.
Hope this helps a bit.
sfgrandma wrote on December 15, 2007 1:15 AM:"Wainstein argued that the immunity provisions were necessary because the telecommunications companies were 'operating on good faith, on assurances from the government. If there is fault here, it's the fault in the legal analysis and the decisions made by the government.'
What these guys just don't get (nor does my distinguished senator) is that in our form of government (or the one we used to have) no administration gets to decide all by itself whether an action is legal. The telecomm companies have lots of high priced legal talent at their disposal; they knew damn well that warrants were required for what they agreed to disclose. Retroactive immunity - and a future in which the courts are stripped of their authority to determine what's lawful, is absolutely the end of a government of laws.
kozmik wrote on December 15, 2007 5:13 AM:Good on you Dodd! The rollover by companies like ATT on illegal wiretapping was awful and probably criminal. And keep in mind, not all companies complied.
T-Mobile for example refused to comply without a warrant. Which is pretty sad considering they're actually a European owned company and know the law better than US companies. But then ATT and Verizon have long been sleazy companies in too many ways, from labor and human rights abuses to a disregard for the law and corrupt campaign contributions and lobbying. Sprint is little better.
They only care about lobbying deregulation and duopolist practices so illegal wiretapping was fine by them.
Evil companies with awful service and I'll never be a customer of either again.
Paul in LA wrote on December 15, 2007 5:30 AM:People wishing to bash ALL the Dems instead of just Leader Reid should recall that about 25 Dem Senators oppose that immunity, and have opposed that immunity, all along (as does the House leadership, all of whom have said that blanket immunity without knowing what for is unacceptable).
Reid just chose --again-- to stand with the other 25, the DINOs.
Plenty of leftists bash Democrats and complain about the 'two party system' over stuff like this. Leader Reid is ONE Democrat. Twenty-five oppose what he will apparently vote for.
Those 25 still deserve support, even if Reid has been beaten.
This has ZERO to do with Presidential politics, so talking about not voting Democratic over this behavior by Leader Reid is yet another fake excuse for this generalized false gloss that is a leftist coin of the realm.
There are three parts of the Dem party (at least). They cooperate because this is a caucus government. Even if leftists were elected to Congress, they too would have no choice but to caucus -- it's a caucus government.
The Progressives and the DLC and the Blue Dogs are, however, not the same. The Senate is NOT going to be changed so easily -- it's a much less responsive body -- and it always have been that way.
Again, leftists and bloggers in general ignore the history of the Senate, and act like it's all brandnew in every moment. The U.S. Senate failed to pass civil rights legislation from the end of Reconstruction until the late 1940s as a result of WWII. Sixty something years.
Leftists do not really have a soution for that other than revolution to some different system of government. A lot of failure comes out of the Senate -- and the Senate is WHY Speaker Pelosi will not allow a trial to occur (because we won't win that either).
Jane wrote on December 15, 2007 11:36 AM:Friends of Harry Reid has a web site with terms of use and a feature which lets you send letters to the editor by zip code. Harry Reid resides in Searchlight, Nevada. The zip code there is 89046
ca_dem wrote on December 15, 2007 12:09 PM:I'm writing regarding the pending filibuster of the telecom immunity bill. While I know that Mr. Obama has expressed support for the filibuster, support is not enough.
The democrats asking for our support as the presidential nominee, can not forgot that they are currently serving as senators, in the majority, and that they have the largest bully pulpit possible at the moment.
Returning to washington from Iowa, to do the job he was elected to do, and bringing the campaign coverage back to the hill, would show us that Mr. Obama is prepared to lead on principals, that under his leadership the erosion of liberty under the bush administration stops now (not in 12 months), and it would send a message to democratic voters like me that the promises about change actually mean something.
My family phone banked and sent money to swing states to make sure we sent a majority to congress in the last election. We have watched stunned as that majority has accomplished so very little, and we have lost on issue after issue.
Show us something Mr. Obama, show us your leadership.
Thank you
Jane wrote on December 15, 2007 12:29 PM:Progressivepunch.org calculates a score for the number of times a Senator voted with the progressives when the vote was close. For 07/08 Hillary voted correctly 87.31% of the time while Obama did so 77.44% of the time. (This put Hillary 30th among the Senators and Obama 44th. These numbers change slightly as new votes come in.)
We'll see who does what now.
Dean Booth wrote on December 15, 2007 1:06 PM:TPM noted above that the anti-torture bill "probably stood a good chance of passing, too, were it not for the hold placed on the legislation by Lindsey Graham." Reid honors a Republican hold on a bill to stop US torture and ignores a Democratic hold on giving telecoms immunity? I am just appalled and dismayed.
Michael Stevens wrote on December 15, 2007 1:09 PM:Joe wrote:
"Can anyone explain to me, anyone anywhere with an opinion, what possible basis is there for supporting immunity??"
Money and power. Quite simply, a lot of our Democratic Senators have caved to the massive telecom lobby.
In fact, many of our Democratic Senators are actively working to sneak through this through at a time when the media and American people's attention is focused elsewhere.
But it gets worse. Because when it comes to a vote, those Democratic Senators in support of telecom immunity will probably vote Against the bill. Because they know if this bill reaches cloture, the Republicans in the Senate (along with Leiberman and Cheney) can complete the sham by passing this legislation.
It takes 60 votes for any Democratic legislation to reach the Senate floor, but for the telecoms, 50 votes, maybe less, will be enough. If this bill reaches cloture, it passes.
There's a reason this is being snuck through with one day's notice, barely a week before Christmas and two weeks before the Iowa primary. Bills like this don't survive a bright media spotlight. And if this goes up for a vote as planned on Monday morning, the media won't have time even talk about it. The 24/7 news cycle is a myth. The media mostly shut down over the weekend, especially this close to the holidays. This massively important issue has even fallen from the top of many progressive blogs. In fact, here's only a one-line mention of this on the main TPM site. The holiday "media blackout" is working as intended by this bill's supporters.
Our only hope of stopping this is for Obama, Hillary, and Biden to make good on their pledge to support a filibuster of this bill. If all Four Democratic Presidential candidates announced plans to abandon Iowa and filibuster this despicable bill, the media spotlight would focus like a laser beam on the legislation.
The good part is they probably wouldn't even have to make good on the threat. Because the moment Obama and Hillary simply announced "Plans" to filibuster this, the bills supporters will ask Harry Reid to cancel the vote. This bill's Democratic supporters will not vote for cloture against a filibuster by the Four Democratic Presidential candidates.
Now we just have to get Obama, Hillary, and Biden to make good on their promises to filibuster this horrible bill.
Greg DeLassus wrote on December 17, 2007 11:13 AM:I keep checking back on this thread hoping to see that a post-script has been added indicating that Sen X has affirmed that they will join Sen Dodd in a filibuster. I am somewhat astounded that there is still nothing fully three days later. Can it really be that no one has pledged to join Sen Dodd. I certainly see no mention of any such announcement on Sen Clinton's, Sen Obama's or Sen Biden's campaign news sites:
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/news/release/
http://www.barackobama.com/press/
http://www.joebiden.com/newscenter/pressreleases
Nor is there anything on any of their three senate web sites:
http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/index.cfm
http://obama.senate.gov/newsroom/
http://biden.senate.gov/newsroom/press.cfm
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