Patriot Act critics in the House, led by Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), had the votes to defeat the most controversial feature of the law — the power of the federal government to see what books people buy and check out at libraries.
In fact, Sanders’ proposed change would have kept the power in the government’s hands, but forced law enforcement officials to go to regular courts to get approval first, instead of secret courts as insisted upon by the Bush administration.
Sanders came one vote short, but the circumstances were disturbing, to say the least. House leaders held the vote open for an extra 23 minutes so Republican lawmakers who supported the change could be “convinced” to reverse their votes.
[T]he victory came only after GOP tactics infuriated Democrats and a number of Republicans. The vote, scheduled to last 15 minutes, dragged on for 38 minutes despite outraged shouts and a unified chant of “shame, shame, shame” from Democrats across the aisle.
In other words, lawmakers voted in the time allotted. When it was over, Dems had won and Sanders’ proposal had passed, 213-206. But instead of gaveling the vote over, Republicans kept the vote open until they could push nine GOP lawmakers into changing their minds.
Dems weren’t the only ones to see “shame” in the leadership’s conduct.
Rep. C.L. Butch Otter (R-Idaho), a conservative and an advocate of the defeated provision, told reporters after the vote: “You win some, and some get stolen.”
Republicans defended the move as necessary to “educate members” about the bill. Let’s see, the last time members needed “educating,” it was with the vote on Bush’s Medicare bill, when House leaders extended the vote for three hours. As Eugene Oregon noted, it was the same time the GOP threatened and offered bribes to House members. I can only wonder how desperate the Republicans got last night. (Ironically, Nick Smith couldn’t be swayed in November, but he flipped yesterday.)
It’s worth noting that in 1987, when then-House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.) kept a floor vote open an extra 15 minutes in a similar stunt, Republicans acted as if Dens had shredded the Constitution. At the time, a Republican congressman named Dick Cheney denounced the move as “the most arrogant, heavy-handed abuse of power I’ve ever seen in the 10 years that I’ve been here.”
And, as the Center for American Progress noted, some Republicans even switched their votes yesterday to oppose a measure they helped co-sponsor.
Sanders had every reason to be outraged.
“I believe that Congress should do all that it can to protect the American people from another terrorist attack, but we must do that without undermining basic constitutional rights. I find it ironic that, on an amendment designed to protect American democracy and our constitutional rights, the Republican Leadership in the House had to rig the vote and subvert the democratic process in order to prevail. This was a very sad day for democracy in America.”