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The Senate passed the FISA Amendments Act this afternoon by a 69-28 margin (roll call), and the record will show that Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar voted with the better angels of her liberal nature–if one only consults today’s record, that is. But two weeks ago, when it mattered, Klobuchar voted to effectively guarantee the bill’s passage.
Today Klobuchar not only voted against the FISA amendments bill, which grants retroactive immunity to telecoms and expands the discretionary snooping powers of the executive branch; she voted in favor of three defeated amendments that would have pared back telecom immunity provisions. But the most consequential Senate vote on FISA came two weeks ago, when a procedural vote was held to apply cloture to the floor debate. There was never any question that the bill had enough Senate support to pass; the only practical chance for stopping it involved the threat of a filibuster by Chris Dodd and Russ Feingold, and a vote for cloture on the motion at hand would take the filibuster out of play and thus ensure the bill’s passage.
On Wednesday, June 25, when the outcome was actually in doubt, Amy Klobuchar voted to limit debate. This afternoon I called Klobuchar’s DC office to ask if there was any reason the seeming contradiction between the vote then and the votes today shouldn’t be taken for hypocrisy. I spoke to press rep Linden Zakula, who had this to say:
"The motion to proceed allows the bill to be debated and amended, which allowed Dodd and Feingold to offer their amendment to strip [telecom] immunity. You’ll notice that 13 other senators joined her today [i.e., 13 other Democratic senators who also voted for cloture and against today's final passage]. The motion to proceed was to allow the bill to be debated and amended. Without that, Senators Dodd and Feingold are not able to introduce amendments to improve the legislation."
Fine, I said, but Senators Dodd and Feingold had announced in a joint statement that they intended to filibuster the bill ("We will oppose efforts to end debate on this bill…"), and the plan had been widely reported in the political press as well. Amending it, which was bound to fail given the numbers arrayed in the Senate, was expressly their second choice.
Given that, I asked again, wasn’t the senator trying to have it both ways on this one? "No."
Was there anything he’d care to add to that? "No."
But Zakula phoned back moments later selling the line that Klobuchar’s procedural vote on June 25 did nothing to preclude any planned filibuster by Feingold and Dodd. I was unable to open a couple of links to documents he sent me, but I did find three fairly high-profile sources that indicated the cloture vote had indeed killed any chance of killing the bill by filibuster: Reuters, Firedoglake, and MnIndy political analyst David Schultz, who says, "I think Klobuchar’s playing a little fast and loose on this one."
More: This isn’t the first time Klobuchar has supported the White House position on FISA, as Jeff Fecke reported for us last summer.
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10 Comments »
Comment posted July 16, 2008 @ 8:50 pm
Apparently a lot of people are still buying the lie about the FISA-”Protect America” BS: to repeat: all FISA requires is a warrant approved by an independent judge. The purpose being to ensure that the givernment is not using electronic surveillance for political purposes, like blackmail or to intimidate. This amendment returns us to the pre-1978 days of J. Edgar Hoover who used his authority to eavesdrop to blackmail all kinds of people and of course to keep himself and his inept agency in power.
Jane Mayer who just published a book called “The Dark Side” has it right I think. This is from achat with the Washington Post Tueday:
“New York, N.Y.: In your interview with Harper’s yesterday, you said this about why war crimes prosecutions are unlikely: “An additional complicating factor is that key members of Congress sanctioned this program, so many of those who might ordinarily be counted on to lead the charge are themselves compromised.”
What did you mean by that? Who specifically is compromised “who might ordinarily be counted on to lead the charge” — Nancy Pelosi, Jane Harman, Jay Rockefeller? — and how are they “compromised”?
Jane Mayer: The ranking members of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees were briefed dozens of times about the CIA’s interrogation and detention program over the past seven years — so any member who has held one of those posts has arguably been complicit. Some say they tried to object, internally. But either because of the threat of violating national security, or, because of the fear of the political price of dissent, these figures in both parties would find it very hard at this point to point the finger at the White House, without also implicating themselves.”
Klobuchar’s failure to vote for cloture was a vote to cover Democratic leadership rears from complicity in War crimes and other wrongdoing. The FISA votes shows how the blackmail is already working.
Comment posted July 13, 2008 @ 12:16 pm
That would be Amy, not May.
Comment posted July 13, 2008 @ 12:15 pm
Smart Politics on May’s part. It would be a bit hypocritical of her (but typical of dems) to keep the majority of the Senate from voting on the bill. Shouldn’t “count every vote, and let every vote count ” be applied to the Senate? Why should a few petty little men hold up this extremely important bill that was already guaranteed to pass?
Once Amy voted to allow it to get to a full vote, she could then publicly pay off her liberal constituency and vote against it like a good little pro-terrorist liberal.
Comment posted July 10, 2008 @ 1:54 pm
Nice piece of work!
That there are no Republican defectors on this bill is a sad commentary on the GOP. If ever there was a issue of individual liberty and rule of law, this is it. Conservatives ought to have led the charge against this bill.
Comment posted July 9, 2008 @ 6:16 pm
Klobuchar explains her previous vote on FISA here
http://uptake.blip.tv/file/419375/
Zakoul is obviously spinning you here but unnecessarily. Do you really think a filibuster would have stopped this bill? This isn’t Mr Smith Goes to Washington. No one is going to rush just as Dodd/Feingold collapse and scream out “Bush LIED to us! Vote against the bill!”
The facts are out – buying time via filibustering seemingly accomplishes nothing. If Dodd/Feingold couldn’t sway their colleagues behind closed doors nothing anyone would have said on the floor could have changed today’s outcome.
Klobuchar probably reasoned as such and thus cut her losses via her June 25th vote. That being said I think we’d all like to see the documents/links Zakoul sent you. What are they? Because it seems CRYSTAL clear that a vote for “cloture” ends any debate/filibuster regardless of what other news agencies say. See: http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Filibuster_Cloture.htm
I think you overpromise on the chance of stopping this bill in June of this year. Enough Democrats had already sided with the Administration to ensure bill passage AND cloture. Since there are no Republican defectors on this issue the Admin only needed to peel off 17 Dems. Looking at the voting record this had been accomplished long before June 25th 2008.
Comment posted July 9, 2008 @ 1:16 pm
Klobuchar explains her previous vote on FISA here
http://uptake.blip.tv/file/419375/
Zakoul is obviously spinning you here but unnecessarily. Do you really think a filibuster would have stopped this bill? This isn't Mr Smith Goes to Washington. No one is going to rush just as Dodd/Feingold collapse and scream out “Bush LIED to us! Vote against the bill!”
The facts are out – buying time via filibustering seemingly accomplishes nothing. If Dodd/Feingold couldn't sway their colleagues behind closed doors nothing anyone would have said on the floor could have changed today's outcome.
Klobuchar probably reasoned as such and thus cut her losses via her June 25th vote. That being said I think we'd all like to see the documents/links Zakoul sent you. What are they? Because it seems CRYSTAL clear that a vote for “cloture” ends any debate/filibuster regardless of what other news agencies say. See: http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/com...
I think you overpromise on the chance of stopping this bill in June of this year. Enough Democrats had already sided with the Administration to ensure bill passage AND cloture. Since there are no Republican defectors on this issue the Admin only needed to peel off 17 Dems. Looking at the voting record this had been accomplished long before June 25th 2008.
Comment posted July 10, 2008 @ 8:54 am
Nice piece of work!
That there are no Republican defectors on this bill is a sad commentary on the GOP. If ever there was a issue of individual liberty and rule of law, this is it. Conservatives ought to have led the charge against this bill.
Comment posted July 13, 2008 @ 7:15 am
Smart Politics on May's part. It would be a bit hypocritical of her (but typical of dems) to keep the majority of the Senate from voting on the bill. Shouldn't “count every vote, and let every vote count ” be applied to the Senate? Why should a few petty little men hold up this extremely important bill that was already guaranteed to pass?
Once Amy voted to allow it to get to a full vote, she could then publicly pay off her liberal constituency and vote against it like a good little pro-terrorist liberal.
Comment posted July 13, 2008 @ 7:16 am
That would be Amy, not May.
Comment posted July 16, 2008 @ 3:50 pm
Apparently a lot of people are still buying the lie about the FISA-”Protect America” BS: to repeat: all FISA requires is a warrant approved by an independent judge. The purpose being to ensure that the givernment is not using electronic surveillance for political purposes, like blackmail or to intimidate. This amendment returns us to the pre-1978 days of J. Edgar Hoover who used his authority to eavesdrop to blackmail all kinds of people and of course to keep himself and his inept agency in power.
Jane Mayer who just published a book called “The Dark Side” has it right I think. This is from achat with the Washington Post Tueday:
“New York, N.Y.: In your interview with Harper's yesterday, you said this about why war crimes prosecutions are unlikely: “An additional complicating factor is that key members of Congress sanctioned this program, so many of those who might ordinarily be counted on to lead the charge are themselves compromised.”
What did you mean by that? Who specifically is compromised “who might ordinarily be counted on to lead the charge” — Nancy Pelosi, Jane Harman, Jay Rockefeller? — and how are they “compromised”?
Jane Mayer: The ranking members of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees were briefed dozens of times about the CIA's interrogation and detention program over the past seven years — so any member who has held one of those posts has arguably been complicit. Some say they tried to object, internally. But either because of the threat of violating national security, or, because of the fear of the political price of dissent, these figures in both parties would find it very hard at this point to point the finger at the White House, without also implicating themselves.”
Klobuchar's failure to vote for cloture was a vote to cover Democratic leadership rears from complicity in War crimes and other wrongdoing. The FISA votes shows how the blackmail is already working.
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