An Alternative Left-Right Strategy to Stop Warrantless Wiretapping
by: David Sirota
This is the third in the regular series called Strategery, which is written by David Sirota and appears every other Wednesday on OpenLeft.
Democrats' capitulation to the White House on the issue of warrantless wiretapping was a move designed to make them look "tough" but which ended up making them look pathetically weak. The Washington Post's lede frames it best: "The Senate bowed to White House pressure last night and passed a Republican plan for overhauling the federal government's terrorist surveillance laws, approving changes that would temporarily give U.S. spy agencies expanded power to eavesdrop on foreign suspects without a court order." In other words, Senate Democrats got muscled by the most unpopular president in contemporary American politics - and they got muscled into using their congressional majority to pass the minority party's offensive proposal. This said, they still have a chance to fix things and regain an image of strength - but only if they now follow a high-profile alternative strategy.
Note the Library of Congress's website showing that while almost all of the 2008 appropriations bills funding the government have already passed the House, they are still awaiting Senate votes, and are further awaiting House-Senate conference committee votes. Any Senator can offer a floor amendment to the Defense Appropriations Bill or the Commerce/Justice/State Appropriations Bill banning the use of government funds for warrantless wiretaps. Similarly, any House or Senate lawmaker on the Appropriations Committee can offer an amendment in these bills' conference committees to do the same thing. If such an amendment became law, the warrantless wiretapping program may still remain technically "authorized" by Congress (though unconstitutional, of course), but the White House would be prohibited from actually using it.
This was precisely the strategy then-Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) employed in passing legislation aimed at limiting the Patriot Act. Building a left-right coalition of progressives and libertarian conservatives like then-Rep. Butch Otter (R-ID), he used the Appropriations process - and the rules that allow such riders to be attached to spending bills - to pass his legislation through the Republican-controlled House. Back then, the Republicans used the murky conference committee arena to strip the legislation out of the final bill - but now that Democrats control the conference committee, it would seem that they would have a far harder time doing the same thing to an appropriations rider preventing the Bush administration from violating Americans' constitutional rights.
Undoubtedly, short-sighted, self-declared political "gurus" like Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) would likely oppose such a high-profile move in the same way he embarrassed himself by citing his "red state" candidates as the reason he pushed for reauthorization of the Patriot Act - even though many key "red state" candidates were actually campaigning against the Patriot Act in order to win over libertarian-leaning voters. Schumer displayed a shortsightedness that many Democratic "strategists" cloistered in Washington are afflicted with. They have never understood how to build left-right coalitions, why they are politically valuable, or how to really look strong on national security issues. They operate with the wholly outdated view that Americans automatically equate support for the Iraq War and unconstitutional presidential power grabs as "strength." (Note: Schumer did vote against this latest bill - perhaps he's learned something).
(Continued here.)
This is the third in the regular series called Strategery, which is written by David Sirota and appears every other Wednesday on OpenLeft.
Democrats' capitulation to the White House on the issue of warrantless wiretapping was a move designed to make them look "tough" but which ended up making them look pathetically weak. The Washington Post's lede frames it best: "The Senate bowed to White House pressure last night and passed a Republican plan for overhauling the federal government's terrorist surveillance laws, approving changes that would temporarily give U.S. spy agencies expanded power to eavesdrop on foreign suspects without a court order." In other words, Senate Democrats got muscled by the most unpopular president in contemporary American politics - and they got muscled into using their congressional majority to pass the minority party's offensive proposal. This said, they still have a chance to fix things and regain an image of strength - but only if they now follow a high-profile alternative strategy.
Note the Library of Congress's website showing that while almost all of the 2008 appropriations bills funding the government have already passed the House, they are still awaiting Senate votes, and are further awaiting House-Senate conference committee votes. Any Senator can offer a floor amendment to the Defense Appropriations Bill or the Commerce/Justice/State Appropriations Bill banning the use of government funds for warrantless wiretaps. Similarly, any House or Senate lawmaker on the Appropriations Committee can offer an amendment in these bills' conference committees to do the same thing. If such an amendment became law, the warrantless wiretapping program may still remain technically "authorized" by Congress (though unconstitutional, of course), but the White House would be prohibited from actually using it.
This was precisely the strategy then-Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) employed in passing legislation aimed at limiting the Patriot Act. Building a left-right coalition of progressives and libertarian conservatives like then-Rep. Butch Otter (R-ID), he used the Appropriations process - and the rules that allow such riders to be attached to spending bills - to pass his legislation through the Republican-controlled House. Back then, the Republicans used the murky conference committee arena to strip the legislation out of the final bill - but now that Democrats control the conference committee, it would seem that they would have a far harder time doing the same thing to an appropriations rider preventing the Bush administration from violating Americans' constitutional rights.
Undoubtedly, short-sighted, self-declared political "gurus" like Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) would likely oppose such a high-profile move in the same way he embarrassed himself by citing his "red state" candidates as the reason he pushed for reauthorization of the Patriot Act - even though many key "red state" candidates were actually campaigning against the Patriot Act in order to win over libertarian-leaning voters. Schumer displayed a shortsightedness that many Democratic "strategists" cloistered in Washington are afflicted with. They have never understood how to build left-right coalitions, why they are politically valuable, or how to really look strong on national security issues. They operate with the wholly outdated view that Americans automatically equate support for the Iraq War and unconstitutional presidential power grabs as "strength." (Note: Schumer did vote against this latest bill - perhaps he's learned something).
(Continued here.)
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