Democrats Punt on Habeas Corpus…For Now
Continuing on my action item. McJoan, whose sources within the party are much better than mine….
Last night I posted on the possibility that the Defense Department authorization being marked up today in the House Armed Services committee might include a provision to restore habeas. It’s not going to happen. Chairman Skelton’s baseline version of the bill did not include habeas reform, and the committee will not add it during mark-up. Skelton does want to see habeas restored, but was concerned about both House and Senate support for the full authorization package if it included habeas, according to advocacy group sources I’ve spoken with today.
There will be future vehicles for habeas restoration, and there is majority support for it in the House Armed Services committee.
She then goes on to approvingly quote the Greenwald editorial Rojas brought up, and the New York Times one:
Rewriting the act should start with one simple step: restoring to prisoners of the war on terror the fundamental right to challenge their detention in a real court. So far, promised measures to restore habeas corpus have yet to see the light of day, and they may remain buried unless Democratic leaders make them a priority and members of both parties vote on principle, not out of fear of attack ads….
The Democratic majority has a long list of wrongs to right from six years of Mr. Bush’s leadership. We are sympathetic to their concerns about finding a way to revive habeas corpus that won’t die in committee or be subject to a presidential veto of a larger bill. But lawmakers sometimes have to stand on principle and trust the voters to understand.
This is one of those times.
The Democratic concerns on this are both shameful and understandable. I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt this time, if they really believe that the fight needs to happen some other way rather than attaching something to a Defense Authorization Bill and facing another presidential veto that they won’t have the votes to overcome and that will bite them in the ass politically (they’re still in the middle of a fight wherein Bush is sticking them with a larger bill to get what he wants). Nevertheless, it’s certainly not the “in a perfect world” outcome, and it’s hard not to be disappointed by the Democratic caucus for playing it safe.
And, if you want some good reading, the user replies to the mcjoan post today are pretty…well, not inclined towards the “benefit of the doubt” mindset.
So…
1. If the Democrats refuse to pass a defense spending authorization, they will be seen as abandoning the troops and will be a political victory for the President.
2. If the Democrats pass a defense spending authorization which Bush then vetoes, that too is a victory for the President.
Here is my forecast: there will be no attempt by this Democratic congress to restore habeas corpus by this or other means, because the majority of them do not support the restoration of habeas corpus rights.
Comment by Rojas — 5/9/2007 @ 6:37 pm
Could be. We’ll see.
Comment by Brad — 5/9/2007 @ 6:41 pm
In the UK, the title would mean ‘Democrats gamble on habeus corpus’.
Just so you know.
Comment by Adam — 5/9/2007 @ 7:14 pm
Fitting.
Comment by Yank Crank — 5/9/2007 @ 8:01 pm
The more I think about this, the angrier it makes me.
The entire story that the Democrats have been telling as to why they can’t challenge the Iraq war is that any attempt to hold up financing will be seen as an attack on the troops.
That would make the addition of this measure to the Defense Authorization Act the single most viable scenario for its passage. It would effectively force Bush to choose between reinstating habeas corpus on the one hand and doing exactly what the Democrats want with regard to the war, to wit: de-funding it. Every single iota of political risk would be the President’s. I see NO scenario in which this comes back to “bite the Democrats in the ass.”
What am I missing? What is the scenario in which the Democrats have a chance to restore habeas corpus rights at LESS risk to themselves politically?
I am inclined to conclude that the Democrats either 1. don’t want habeas corpus rights restored, but want to SEEM like they do or 2. are dead set on having these issues to batter the Republicans with in 2008, principle be damned.
Comment by Rojas — 5/9/2007 @ 8:15 pm
If he vetoed it, Rojas, surely it’d be spun as a Democrat attempt to sabotage the war by adding extraneous sections to Defense bills, that had to be vetoed by the righteous President Bush?
Comment by Adam — 5/9/2007 @ 8:24 pm
I can see him spinning that story to his core. Do you think ANYBODY outside of his core would buy it?
“I may have been the one who cut the funding, but it was the DEMOCRATS who actually abandoned the troops by forcing me to cut off funding for them by threatening to take away our ability to detain people indefinitely without trial.”
Does that sound like an argument that the Democrats would have any reason to be afraid of?
No. They’re throwing this fight. The only question is why.
Comment by Rojas — 5/9/2007 @ 9:09 pm
Actually, I think that adding extraneous sections to unconnected bills pisses a lot of people off, when they hear about it (of course, it happens a lot, but it’s not often publicised outside of angrypunditworld).
Comment by Adam — 5/9/2007 @ 9:12 pm
It’s not any different from “I can’t accept these bills to fund our soldiers because they include a timetable for withdraw.” Timetables for withdraw are probably about as popular as habeas corpus (actually, probably way more, but that’s too depressing to express), that’s not the issue, the issue is that the Democrats don’t want a Congressional shutdown ala the Republicans in the mid 90s particularly as it pertains to the DoD and military in a war zone, and the Bush administration and Congressional Republicans have taken and will continue to take every opportunity to paint it as such. Democrats have EVERY reason to be afraid of it.
Attaching a philosophical matter of principle to a budget appropriations bill for the Department of Defense is a potential back-breaking loser, and this coming from somebody who thinks they probably should have gone ahead and done it anyway. But it’s understandable why they wouldn’t throw down there, particularly if they think they can kick the fight down the road when A. it’ll be a bigger political issue that they can paint the GOP with, and B. the GOP will likely be much less cohesive and much more willing to break rank.
Now, whether that’s what they plan to do on the matter is the real question, but I don’t think there’s anything particularly flimsy about not wanting to attach it to a DoD appropriations bill.
There are, by the way, two bills floating around right now:
House.
Senate.
The latter currently only has 11 co-sponsors, Chris Dodd, and:
Sen Bingaman, Jeff [NM]
Sen Boxer, Barbara [CA]
Sen Brown, Sherrod [OH]
Sen Feingold, Russell D. [WI]
Sen Harkin, Tom [IA]
Sen Kennedy, Edward M. [MA]
Sen Lautenberg, Frank R. [NJ]
Sen Leahy, Patrick J. [VT]
Sen Menendez, Robert [NJ]
Sen Mikulski, Barbara A. [MD]
Sen Sanders, Bernard [VT]
Nominally called the “Restore the Constitution Act”, that basically contains nothing but a restoration of habeas corpus, a declaration about the humane treatment of detainees, and the rights with regards to military tribunals. Both are, I believe, being referred to the Armed Services Committees of the House and the Senate. That strikes me as a much better way to address the issue; that or an outright repeal of the MCA. There are certainly other ways to do it; the call to action on the committee stuff yesterday was just over scuttlebutt that the battle COULD potentially be joined there, not that it had to be.
By the way, as this is an issue of great import to you and we’re now both committed to holding feet to the appropriate fires, I suppose this makes John McCain unelectable to us both? Regardless of the rhetoric on extraordinary rendition and torture, there is no single man besides perhaps the President and his people as responsible for the PROACTIVE disintegration of habeas corpus that it is now apparently a moral imperative for the Democrats to repeal than Senator McCain. And, of course, being a Senator, he and the rest of the Republican Congress have ample opportunity to redress the situation as well, if they wish.
Comment by Brad — 5/9/2007 @ 10:30 pm
Supporting the Military Commissions Act is unquestionably the worst act of McCain’s career and the single factor that most mitigtes my support for his Presidential candidacy. That said:
1. Do I think McCain would have initiated the elimination of habeas corpus protections as President? Not a chance in hell.
2. Do I think the Military Commissions Act will survive a four year McCain presidency? In point of fact, I don’t think it’ll survive the first month. I suspect that the only reason he’s not running against it now is in order to position himself in the primary. He’s ALREADY made himself the only major contender for President to explicitly promise to end rendition and shut down Guantanamo, and this while fighting for the right wing vote in a terror-centric Republican primary season.
3. The only reason that you regard McCain as holding more responsibility for the MCA than any of the many, many other Senators, Republicans and Democrats, who voted for it, is that you have higher expectations of him. As Greenwald points out, it was only the complete and utter abdication of responsibility by the entire body of Senate Democrats that left McCain in a position where he could play kingmaker on the act in the first place.
I, like you, have come to expect leadership from John McCain, so it bitterly disappoints me when he doesn’t provide it. Does that make him less electable than the likes of John Edwards and Hillary Clinton, who never even considered the possibility of leading? Not hardly.
Comment by Rojas — 5/10/2007 @ 2:40 pm
No, what put McCain in the position of kingmaker was that the Democrats were in the minority opposing a bill that was supported by the Republican majority. Simply put, their only legislative hope of defeating the bill was if Republicans either broke rank or used their majority to talk the president down. McCain and company came to them selling the latter, and instead Trojan Horsed the entire act through.
The Democrats in the minority could have screamed like hell about it (which they more or less did) and it would have passed anyway, or they could have trusted a cadre of principled Republicans to try to help them broker a compromise, which they did, and got railroaded for their trouble. The Democrats, were it not for being hoodwinked by McCain and the like, might have even tried their last-ditch efforts, the filibuster and the like, which also would have failed, but again, McCain.
There is simply put no way that you can place more responsibility on the Democrats than the Republicans on the MCA, and of the Republicans, no way that you can’t hold McCain as about the principle architect for its passage in the Senate. On this, Greenwald is dead wrong. The Democrats certainly were a failure in stopping it, but in the hierarchy of failure, including the Bush administration, the Republican negotiators, the Republican proponents, the Democrats in favor, and the Democrats who worked against it, when you’re speaking of abdication of moral responsibility, it goes in exactly that order.
When habeas corpus came before the Senate, Senator Clinton voted against its repealment (her floor statement). Senator Obama voted against its repealment (his floor statement). Senator Dodd voted against its repealment. Senator Biden voted against its repealment. Senator Reid voted against its repealment. Senator McCain not only voted FOR its repealment, but did more than any single Senator to ENSURE that his vote won, literally (and explicitly) putting it on his good name as he did so.
Currently, there are two measures afoot trying to restore habeas corpus (that both predate the action item I mentioned). One, I already mentioned (sponsored by Jane Harman in the house and Chris Dodd in the Senate); the other, the “Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007″, cosponsored by, among other people, Senators Clinton and Obama (and, incidentally, Arlen Specter–the only Republican).
As far as your points 1 and 2 go, you seem quite less forgiving about other politicians slow-playing these issues for the sake of political expediency.
Comment by Brad — 5/10/2007 @ 3:57 pm
Now, all that said, you and I are certainly on the same side with regards to this issue (that last post probably came off as more angry than I intend it; I intend it as vehement), but if we’re assigning varying degrees of blame here, I don’t think the Democratic minority of 2004 is at the top of the list, not by a longshot.
Comment by Brad — 5/10/2007 @ 3:59 pm
Oh, and Rojas:
Yesterday in Richmond. Put him on the list.
That’s John McCain, Barack Obama, and Ron Paul, for those keeping score at home.
Of the three, McCain is the one without the consistent record.
Comment by Brad — 5/10/2007 @ 4:14 pm