CQ Politics reports in House Carves a New Path on FISA:
House Democrats plan to take up surveillance legislation this week that would reject White House insistence on retroactive legal immunity for telecommunications companies that have cooperated with the government in warrantless wiretapping.
The draft legislation also would establish a bipartisan commission to investigate the president’s warrantless surveillance initiative, according to a House Democratic official.
House Democratic leaders, under election year pressure from the right to give in to the White House and from the left to stand firm, hope to pass the draft bill before they leave for the two-week spring recess.
The latest proposal would sidestep stalled House-Senate negotiations over an overhaul HR 3773 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA, PL 95-511). But most aspects of the new legislation were developed without Senate consultation, so it is unlikely to break the logjam.
Details of the new bill, and the House Democrats’ plan, were still tentative late Monday after House leaders met to discuss how to proceed.
The White House and congressional Republicans have pressed House Democrats at every turn to take up the Senate version of FISA legislation, which would grant the telecommunications companies legal protections. House Democrats have resisted providing retroactive immunity.
A new ad campaign by an outside group is the latest in a volley of Republican efforts to batter House Democrats into submission and raise the stakes in an election year. . . .
The Republican front group, Defense of Democracies, is behind the ads:
Defense of Democracies, a newly created advocacy organization that is an offshoot of the neoconservative Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, kicked off a new ad campaign Monday designed to pressure Democrats into taking up the Senate bill, this time criticizing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. The group also has run ads in the districts of freshmen Democrats.
Democrats plan to unveil their new legislation Tuesday.
The New York Times has more in House Steers Its Own Path on Wiretaps. It's a few weeks old, but US News and World Reports put together a Fact Check on Wiretapping Law Claims,
We're curious to learn the details and where Congressman Walz stands on this new proposal.
Matt Browner Hamlin takes a critical look at the proposal at the CREDO blog, a project of Working Assets.
CQ Politics also reports Presidential Candidates Set to Cosponsor DeMint's Earmark Moratorium. This news first came to our attention yesterday, when Ed Felker asked the question Earmarks on the chopping block?at the PB's Political Party blog.
Felker's question was prompted by this item at Politico, Obama, Clinton embrace earmark moratorium. David Rogers wrote:
After months of partisan sniping, the great earmarks debate in Congress may be collapsing in a marriage of political convenience between conservatives and leading Democrats.
Late Monday, presidential candidate Barack Obama, quickly followed by rival Hillary Rodham Clinton, joined Senate efforts to ban all such home-state projects next year, and the anti-pork camp also hopes to pick up some unexpected help from a third Democrat: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The back-to-back endorsements mean the entire presidential field will be on board the budget amendment already co-sponsored by the likely Republican presidential nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain. Pelosi has not yet gone so far as to embrace such a broad moratorium on earmarks, but she also has signaled a growing weariness with the debate and a desire to take the issue off the table going into the November elections.
Back at Political Party, Felker observes:
The Politico's David Rogers notes that a one-year moratorium may be something of a freebie politically. Bush's vow to veto spending bills that exceed his budget targets, combined with the elections, appear to set the stage for the Democrats to extend the 2008 budget year into 2009 without new appropriations bills and new earmarks, though they will likely pass defense spending bills.
Where's Walz on this? Felker writes:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., last week raised the idea of the House also forgoing earmarks as a way to pay for a big infrastructure stimulus bill, to muted response so far. Rep. Tim Walz, D-Mankato, said Thursday he would look at the idea but said he had not registered his support or opposition with Pelosi.
CQ Politics notes that the Senate has had little enthusiasm for earmark reform, but the dynamics of a presidential election may spur its attention:
Many senators, particularly appropriators, have shown little interest in an earmark ban, arguing that it is Congress’ job to decide how federal money is spent, and that eliminating earmarks cedes too much power to the executive branch. But with McCain, Clinton or Obama on track to be the next president, that dynamic could change.
Walz voted for earmark reform early in 2007 and publicly disclosed his earmark requests last summer in an effort to make the process more transparent; he did add two later that dealt with the costs of the August flooding in SE Minnesota. Those who chide Walz about earmarks neglect this history, favoring instead a Club for Growth scorecard of "gotcha" votes (we critiqued the conservative group's approach here when the scorecard was released last August).
We're not sure if a gimmick like a moratorium is such a good idea if it
means delaying projects like the Lewis and Clark Rural Water system--true earmark reform would make sure the projects like the water system, which received high scores by independent reviewers, are not dropped in favor of other projects with less merit.
Check out Politico’s article on FISA http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/8959_Page2.html
They state that there is another commercial being broadcast … but they don’t say what areas are being targeted.
The chart shows the $ leverage of the Telecoms and Chamber groups have available to lobby Congress versus the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other plaintiffs.
The interesting comments are :
The group has made the case that there are other ways to protect the telephone companies without providing blanket immunity, including capping financial damages. “Immunity without any meaningful court review only [serves] to bury wrongdoing”
Also, a telecom lobbyist said, granting immunity would prevent the public from finding out whether there was a quid pro quo between corporations and the government.
Regarding a moratorium on earmarks … give me a break. Does postponing a Lewis&Clark project now make it any less expensive or unnecessary in one year? Projects will just be delayed or held in queue while new projects come forward … the next Congress will have to deal with the issue. Pork-barrel spending is one thing … earmarks are another.
My suggestion would be that they put a cap on any one State for how much can be spent … in absolute dollars and in per capita dollars. How can it be justified that Alaska gets $1.80 for every tax dollar paid .. in 2006, Alaska got $325 million … or $490 for every resident while the national average is $30.
If the Republicans were serious about earmarks, they would have put Jeff Flake on the Appropriations Committee not Jo Bonner … and that was approved by Kline and the rest of the Republicans last month. Secondly, with the number of retirements from the Appropriations Committee, if the Republicans were serious they should just re-assign those people out now and replace them with Kline and his fellow vocal complainers.
Earmarks are getting the publicity, yet the wasteful military spending is not getting the same attention.
• Spending on cost-plus contracts - under which the government bears the risk of cost overruns.
• Spending on no-bid contracts - those granted without competition from other companies.
• Spending on monopoly contracts, which allow the government to buy goods and services without defining them in advance.
Sen. Byron Dorgan had a hearing yesterday that should be the foundation of where to look for money.
Posted by: MinnesotaCentral | March 12, 2008 at 10:18 AM