House Approves One-Month Patriot Act Extension:
Hours after the Senate approved a six-month extension of the Patriot Act, the House of Representatives showed its independence by rejecting the compromise and passing a one-month extension. Story here.
The White House has gotten so used to throwing its political weight and bludgeoning all opposition into submission that it's forgotten how politics is normally done. Now the knives are out an all sides. What's the White House going to do now? All the Democrats in the Senate will cheerfully vote for a one-month extension. But the White House has been calling the Senators who voted against the Patriot Act the next thing to traitors and claiming that letting the Act lapse will place America in immediate danger. How can Bush now veto an extension, even for a month? If he signs it, however, he'll have lost enormous "street cred."
Bluffs only work until they're called. First Miers, then the torture ban and now this. Bush needs to get his political act together, and quickly, or he's going to turn into the earliest (and lamest) lame duck President in American history.
Or is this a Dem tactic to delay Alito's confirmation even further, cuz, well, we have to do the Patriot Act thing first, you know.
First, I think the one-month extension would start at the end of the year.
Second, there's no way this fiasco can be blamed on the Democrats. The Republicans firmly control the House and it's the House that's causing the problem. This particular wound is purely self-inflicted.
The return from Christmas break does not start the morning of Jan 1st, I believe (I'll be happy to stand corrected if I'm wrong on that) so there is indeed calendar overlap. Also, note that I referred to the time it takes to study the Patriot Act issues. Such study could begin immediately, and probably should, but I suspect most members will want to spend the holdays holidaying first, which would provide the functional impact I referred to.
I try to comment with care; please read the same way, thx.
Also, any blame should be apportioned according to the votes; i.e. some if it falls to the R's, as a handful of them support this, or at least are unwilling to break a threatened or implied filibuster; the rest of the blame (the bulk of it) falls to the Dems.
Then I'm sure you'll join me in condemning all those slimy, tratorious House Republicans -- every single one of which effectively voted for the one-month extension since it was passed under the unanimous consent rules.
Or, maybe, there's something going on here beyond good guys, bad guys and partisan politics.
Then I'm sure you'll join me...
If the R's in q voted under threat of filibuster, knowing that they did not have enough votes to break one, then a vote for a one-month extension would be more properly seen as a "best we can get; better one step than none" move.
Those in the House &Senate who actively support filibusters, which are inherently anti-democratic, are the true culprits.
It is time for fundamental reform in this regard. If the original purpose of a fb - a small delay whilst new, important arguments are made - is important, I'm sure it can be accomodated other than by allowing a minority to thwart the legitimate actions of an elected majroity.
Instead, why not move to a three-choice vote: yes/no/continue. When a majority votes yes or no, an issue is settled. When a member is unsure, or accepts the need for delay, they can vote to continue without in any way weakening future attempts at legit fb's, as would occur with the "nuke" option to permanently change the rules on Judicial confirmation votes.
Better still, y/n/c would put each member on the record on an issue by issue basis, rather than having them conflate the issue of the day w/the principle of fb'ing in general.
Lastly, and importantly, in a media age filled with skitterish pols, those voting yes or no could not be accused of stifling debate.
However this is resolved, the fb problem is about to get much worse: Dems have found an effective weapon by which to embarrass R's and will use it repeatedly as long as it lasts. And apparently, they will do so whether the actual result is good, bad, or indifferent to their country.
Can't filibuster in the House. That's a Senate rule. R's control the House. They wanted a month. On their heads be it...
Noah,
My thoughts exactly. Crazier things have come out of conference recently.
Can't filibuster in the House.
Really? Oops.
I'm a Canadian who thought similar rules prevailed in both chambers. I stand corrected, tho I'll also stand by the need to do something about fb's in the Senate. [btw, up here, we've had similar tactics/debate tried in our parliament and resolved after a while by cloture, which the public accepts over endless, and usually by that pt, pointless debate]
Slinking away now....
That was the original purpose of the filibuster... back in 1852. As it turns out, it's a way to protect a significantly large minority opinion. After all, the Senate only needs 60 votes to invoke cloture (which effectively ends a filibuster). If a bill has 3/5ths of the Senate behind it, it's considered sufficiently well-vetted to proceed. Democrats leaders voiced arguments against the filibuster at the beginning of the Clinton presidency... they didn't like those pesky Republicans sinking their partisan objectives, when they controlled the Legislature and the Executive. At that time, Republicans were the ones fighting to keep it.
The House used to have the filibuster, before it grew too large to govern via the more relaxed rules of the Senate. Also, the Senate used to have cloture at 66 votes out of 100, not the 60 it is today. Times change, and maybe we'll move to the ultimate 'majority rules' scenario, but I like the detente between Republicans and Democrats.
It's also worth noting that the filibuster requires active participation from the defending side to succeed. Many Senators might be willing to vote against a bill, or vote against it coming to cloture (think Strom Thurmond), but don't want the visual image of actually reading from a dictionary during Senate debates. One reason the filibuster is used more often nowadays is because Senate leaders usually put off the discussion of a bill if they can't reach cloture.
On to the original point — I think this is a good move by the House. They keep the pressure on the Senate and don't hold it over to the election (where it's kind of iffy who would benefit... the public has gotten more antsy over the perceived intrusions of the Patriot Act in recent months). Pres. Bush may feel a little weak over the inquiries, and it behooves him to trumpet an agreement on the Patriot Act sooner rather than later. The Patriot Act is his big blow against terrorism politically, and will likely be a large part of his legacy.
The conference was completed before this matter broke into the open. I don't see the Senate considering the Patriot Act extension now without bringing the surveillance issue into play. The timing of the NYT story already fueled the filibuster earlier this month.
The Democrats will say, in effect, "Which part of no do you not understand, Mr. President? We did not intend our statutory language in FISA and the AUMF to mean what you now claim it means. Now we can clarify the language for you."
If the Bush administration had played this forthrightly to begin with, they would have asked for FISA to be amended in the original Patriot Act (just as it modified other FISA provisions) to authorize the NSA surveillance program. Now the extension may be the vehicle to rebuke the executive.
House counters by passing 3 hour extension...
While I disagree about the value of extended fb's, I much appreciate the informative reply. Thx.
Mr. Cheney's Imperial Presidency.
Tomorrow's news today...and most germane to Orin's post.
If you're a Canadian, why are you so concerned with procedural rules in the legislative bodies of the United States?
Is there any way to see the House's action as anything more than an incomprehensible snit by Sensenbrenner? Frist fought off a Sen Dem effort to extend the act by a month, winning this 6-month deal, I think. Sensenbrenner then sees something from the Senate that he doesn't like, and changes it for the sole purpose of obnoxiousness. His fix would have been seen as a victory for Dems had it come from the Senate. Or am I missing something?
while he's wrong, wrong, wrong, it is clear that ras, as a Canadian, has a legitimate and intelligent interest in the affairs of our large, bellicose, country.
TJ,
Your country does not strike me as bellicose, a claim that does not hold up to scrutiny. Loud and frenetic, maybe, and often impatient, but those are different from being bellicose, as did sometimes occur earlier in your history (e.g. the colonization of the western states).
But a country that could have conquered mine in, like, 10 seconds, has instead for decades treated us peacefully and with respect, traded honorably (spats such as softwood lumber notwithstanding) and protected us as needed.
Canada is in a unique position on that last point. You guys have to either protect us or conquer us in order to maintain your own security, that's the geography. I appreciate your choice; it says much. Even today, as we sit on oil reserves greater than Saudi Arabia's, we don't worry. How many other countries in history, sitting on such resources and faced with the same disparity in power to their neighbor, could say as much?