Watched it all, gavel to gavel:
a green sprig coming it was.
Feingold + NY Times piece ('bove the fold) = 1, 2 punch...
wishing now for a TKO
Gerald S.
Feingold Beats Bush In Patriot Act Fight
John Nichols
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?bid=1&pid=43115
Posted 12/16/2005 @ 3:19pm
Four years ago, U.S. Senator Russ Feingold distinguished
himself as the Senate's premier defender of the
Constitution, when he cast the chamber's sole vote
against enactment of the Patriot Act. As a time when
every other senator -- even liberal Democrats with long
records of championing the Bill of Rights -- joined the
post-September 11 rush to curtail basic liberties,
Feingold stood alone in defense of the principle that it
was possible to combat terrorism and protect the rights
of Americans.
But Feingold no longer stands alone. On Friday, he led a
bipartisan group of senators that successfully blocked
the administration's concerted effort to renew the
Patriot Act in a form that maintains its most abusive
components. A move by Republican leaders of the Senate
to prevent Feingold from mounting a filibuster fell
seven votes short of the number needed. A remarkable 47
senators -- including Democrats and Republicans --
backed the Wisconsin Democrat's stance. That's far more
than the 40 needed to prevent a filibuster, and it means
that Feingold now heads a coalition that should be able
to force significant changes in the Patriot Act before
the December 31 deadline for its renewal.
The Senate coalition that the maverick senator has
assembled is made up of members from across the
political spectrum -- from Massachusetts Democrat Ted
Kennedy, the dean of Senate liberals, to Idaho
Republican Larry Craig, one of the chamber's most right-
wing members -- who have joined Feingold in calling for
reform of the Patriot Act.
This coalition did not just form overnight.
It is the result of four years of hard work by Feingold
and others who recognized that the fight to fix the
Patriot Act would have to be a long-term struggle.
Some members of Congress were swayed by Feingold's
constant pressure on Patriot Act issues, and by the fact
that the senator was easily reelected in 2004 after a
campaign in which he highlighted his opposition to the
measure and his concern for the Constitution.
Others were influenced by the diligent efforts of U.S.
Representative Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, and his allies
in organizations of librarians and independent
booksellers, who campaigned for three years to alert
Americans to the fact that the Patriot Act allowed
federal agents to collect information on the reading
habits of law-abiding citizens.
Others, still, were convinced by the success that the
Bill of Rights Defense Committee had in getting seven
states and close to 400 communities across the country
to go on record expressing concern about the damage done
by the Patriot Act to Constitutional protections against
illegal searches and other abuses.
So popular did the movement to fix the legislation
become that this week, with the December 31 deadline for
reauthorizing the Patriot Act looming, the Bush
administration and its Congressional allies were forced
to use a backdoor maneuver to thwart reforms that had
been unanimously agreed to by the Senate. A conference
committee report that was supposed to reconcile the
Senate and House versions of the reauthorization measure
instead was turned into a vehicle to maintain the most
controversial and unpopular components of the Act.
The White House and its Congressional allies thought
they could secure reauthorization of the act in a form
that allowed the Justice Department and other federal
agencies to continue running roughshod over the Bill of
Rights by bringing the measure up on the eve of the
Holiday recess and then spinning up the usual
hyperventilated talk about how it is necessary to crush
the Constitution in order to keep the American people
safe.
The maneuver worked in the House, where the report was
approved Wednesday by a 251-174 vote. (The
administration won that vote only because 44 Democrats,
including Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland,
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Rahm
Emanuel and Ben Cardin, a candidate for Maryland's open
Senate seat in 2006 -- voted with the vast majority of
House Republicans for a measure that the American Civil
Liberties Union condemned as lacking "needed safeguards
to protect the privacy and constitutional freedoms of
innocent Americans.")
But, even as the House fell in line with the
administration's scheme, Feingold refused to back down.
He met the White House onslaught with a promise to do
everything in his power to block reauthorization of the
act in a form that does not sufficiently address
concerns about federal agencies entering the homes of
citizens of innocent Americans, reviewing library and
medical records as part of "fishing expeditions" and
secretly subpoenaing information without following
standard legal procedures.
Going into Friday's fight, Feingold assembled an
unlikely coalition of liberal Democrats and libertarian
Republicans to press his case against reauthorization in
the manner demanded by the administration. The coalition
came together around the premise that freedom need not
be sacrificed in order to maintain security.
While he had allies this time, it was still Feingold who
took the lead -- and who took the heat.
When Attorney General Alberto Gonzales lobbied the
Senate on behalf of the conference report, claiming that
the version under consideration was respectful of civil
liberties and pleading with senators to "trust" the
administration to do the right thing, Feingold took to
the floor of the Senate with a blistering response.
"Trust of government cannot be demanded, or asserted, or
assumed, it must be earned," the senator said. "And this
government has not earned our trust. It has fought
reasonable safeguards for constitutional freedoms every
step of the way. It has resisted congressional oversight
and often misled the public about its use of the Patriot
Act. And now the Attorney General is arguing that the
conference report is adequate 'protection for civil
liberties for all Americans.' It isn't."
In the end, every Democratic senator except South
Dakota's Tim Johnson and Nebraska's Ben Nelson (who
voted with the Republicans), and Connecticut's Chris
Dodd (who did not vote) sided with Feingold. So, too,
did Vermont Independent Jim Jeffords and three
conservative Republicans: Idaho's Craig, Nebraska's
Chuck Hagel and New Hampshire's John Sununu. (Republican
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, an ally of the
administration, also voted against cloture in order to
maintain his ability to reopen the issue.)
The failure of the Senate to block Feingold's filibuster
threat does not doom the Patriot Act. The likelihood is
that it will be renewed in some form. But the version
that is eventually approved should be significantly more
respectful of the Bill of Rights than the version the
administration wanted.
That's all that Russ Feingold has been asking for since
he began his lonely challenge to the Patriot Act back in
2001. The only difference is that, now, Feingold's voice
is part of a bipartisan chorus that is demanding that
Constitutional rights be defended by the members of
Congress who have sworn to uphold that document.
As Feingold said Friday, "Today's vote proves that this
is not a partisan issue. This is an American issue and a
constitutional issue. Now is the time to come together
to give the government the tools it needs to fight
terrorism and protect the rights and freedoms of
innocent citizens."
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