We have a CONSTITUTION.
UPHOLD YOUR OATH OF OFFICE!

Shouldn’t the vote be up on roll call? Has anyone tried to look it up? Do they put committee votes on roll call, or is there somewhere else to look for the committee votes?

Here is what appears to have happened (based on the TPM report), and this may have been Leahy’s coup… he used a procedural vote to strip out Title II, and these kinds of procedural votes are almost always done on party lines. Its one thing for DiFi to disagree with the Chairman on the contents of the bill — going against the Chair from your own party on a procedural issue is an entirely different matter….

WaPo has a link, but it’s never very current unfortunately. I keep looking for better ones.

Congressional Vote Roll Call WaPo under Politics on their toolbar

1. C-SPAN cut off the last five minutes of its recording, which is when the vote was (presumably) held to vote out Title I as a “substitute” for the Senate Intelligence Committee bill the SJC had received. So I missed the reason why Specter’s ’substitution’ amendment on Title II (which he had just offered, and Whitehouse had just announced he had second degree amendments for) was not voted on. However, the intent was clear – Leahy was having trouble maintaining a quorum, and they had judge nominations to vote on still (they planned to reconvene Friday morning as necessary for more votes, as well). So Leahy was pushing to close out FISA by just passing Title I, and leaving Title II for further discussion and possible floor amendment in some modified form.

2. Leahy, Feinstein and others were talking from the beginning about postponing action on Title II (the immunity provision) because of new proposals that Feinstein in particular wanted to use the upcoming two-week break to further consider (by consulting “Constitutional scholars” and others…). Especially re Specter’s proposal to substitute the government (us) for the giant telecom corporations as the defendants in pending lawsuits. She and others (Whitehouse, Cardin, Specter and maybe Leahy) are looking for ‘a way out’ – a compromise that gives the companies something without (effectively) cutting the Judicial Branch out of the Constitution on this matter. Feinstein was hoping not to have to vote on Feingold’s amendment striking the immunity, at all, I think – in lieu of further study.

3. Feingold is not done with his amendments. He has a “complex” amendment which he has been working hard on in the Intelligence Committee, that apparently directly and significantly amends the program warrant provision, but he didn’t offer it Thursday. [The “program” or “block” spying “core” of this bill was very much in evidence in the discussion during the meeting. It does seem that it may be more limited to communications abroad than the vague language of the bills would indicate, but it is definitely sweeping up Americans without any particularized, probable cause permission from a judge.] Feingold said others were just getting up to speed on the bill’s provisions, and he would hold his amendment until others had a chance to study it more, and presumably then offer it on the floor. He also has another amendment that would refine the bill to have the FISC pre-authorize the programmed surveillance order (rather than letting the Executive Branch proceed and then ask permission), which he withdrew for further discussion with Feinstein and Specter.

4. Many of the Senators sort of think the Fourth Amendment might be a good idea, and maybe worth following, if it’s not too inconvenient. Jon Kyl never heard of it. Russ Feingold is the voice of the American people, and often seems to be accordingly ignored as “too earnest” (or something) by the power brokers.

5. It’s all gone underground now. We’ll be at the mercy of Feinstein, Leahy, and Reid and the Democratic caucus as to timing and content of any bill that Dodd lets onto the floor. But no further Senate action seems likely until the first couple of weeks in December.

I know Christy has checked in below on the blogoline; this may be redundant with something included there or in this comment colloquium (confess I haven’t read everything here). But Leahy has recounted it this way:

“The Senate Judiciary Committee has passed a better, stronger and more balanced bill to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, including reducing the sunset provision from six to four years, to make it easier to make further improvements in the years to come.”

From here (worth reading in full; it’s short):

http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200711/111507c.html

OT..A little info on DOJ #2

The White House has nominated a Chicago federal judge to take the No. 2 post at the Justice Department under new Atty Gen. Michael Mukasey
(snip)
The Harvard Law graduate also clerked for conservative Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, who swore him in as a judge in 2004.
(snip)

chitrib

Posted this last night.

Filip, at 41, is one of the youngest of George W. Bush’s appointees to the Federal Courts. He’s replacing the acting Deputy Attorney General Craig Morford, a career Justice Department prosecutor who temporarily stepped into the job after Paul McNulty, resigned last summer.

It process of Senate confirmation could be time consuming, especially since soon after his prior confirmation and appointment to the Federal Bench he made a controversial $2000 donation to the Bush-Cheney Re-Election Committee.

Filip was nominated for the federal bench in November 2003, and is viewed by the Chicago Bar as a pragmatic and disciplined jurist. He ranked first among federal judges in several categories in a 2006 poll of Chicago-area attorneys. Some have placed him on lists of potential nominees to higher judicial positions with the goal of placing him in a position to be considered for the Supreme Court.

He attended Oxford as a Marshall Scholar after graduating from the University of Illinois in 1988, and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1992. He was vice president of the Harvard Law School Federalist Society and he authored an article entitled “Why Learned Hand Would Never Consult Legislative History Today.”

In that article Filip argued that referring to legislative history should be rejected by judges as it merely reflects desires of congressional staff and lobbyists, and because it does not reflect the majority will of Congress. Filip argued that, when confronted with statutory language that would lead to an absurd result, a judge should apply his or her own reasoning rather than legislative history.

Filip served as clerk in the early 1990’s to Supreme Court Justice Scalia. In 2000 he acted as a poll monitor in Broward County, Florida for the Bush campaign during the controversial hand recounts.

He was a partner with the Chicago-based Skadden, Arps, Meagher & Flom, where in 2003 he represented several HMO’s facing a class action lawsuit filed by doctors claiming they were cheated on reimbursements.

In 2005 while a Federal judge, he permitted a class action discrimination lawsuit against Daimler-Chrysler Services North America LLC by black car-buyers to go proceed. Filip also served previously as an assistant U.S. attorney in Chicago, where he received a Justice Department award for his successful prosecution of seven corrupt police officers.

At Mukasey’s swearing-in ceremony earlier this week, Bush said he would announce additional appointments filling some of the 12 highest-ranking Justice Department jobs -including the No. 2 and 3 spots and six assistant attorneys general – currently are held by officials not yet confirmed by the Senate. In addition, two other senior officials have announced their resignations. He may attempt to make some of these “recess appointments” over the Thanksgiving or Christmas Holidays.

They knew it was illegal then, yet the did it. It is still illegal now.

Bushies are going to be impeached. LOL