Amash-Conyers Fails 205-217
In one of the closest votes in a long time for civil liberties, the Amash-Conyers amendment just failed, but only barely, by a vote of 205-217.
The debate was lively, with Mike Rogers, Michele Bachmann, and Iraq verteran Tom Cotton spoke against the amendment; Amash closely managed time to include a broad mix of Democrats and Republicans.
The only nasty point of the debate came when Mike Rogers (R-MI) suggested Justin Amash (R-MI) was leading this charge for Facebook likes.
Update: Here’s the roll call.
Several people have noticed that Pelosi voted against it, and they are Not Happy.
There was also the point where the powers that be gave 15 minutes for voting on a different amendment that “clarified” that the program was ok because it collected no content and then only gave 2 minutes for voting on the Amash/Conyers amendment.
There was also the part where Mike Rogers accused Amash of having “Forgotten 9/11” so TERROR!
@P J Evans: I wish that I could be surprised by this. Pelosi has been disappoing in her willingness, nay eagerness, to toe the party line (i.e. Obama’s line). While she once was a stauch advocate for Civil Liberties she has since, Like Harry Reid, been revealed to be just interested in partisanship and wholly uninterested in actual principle.
Illinois has 12 Dem congress members out of 18 total. Only two–Danny Davis and Bobby Rush–voted for Amash amndt. Two out of our six Repubs also voted for Amash. Not worth voting Dem in Illinois anymore.
Here’s the roll call:
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2013/roll412.xml
Pleasantly surprised to see my rep (Walz) among the ayes. He voted for telecom immunity back when as I recall…
[Rush] HOLT INTRODUCES “SURVEILLANCE STATE REPEAL ACT”; 7/24/13
Bill Would Repeal PATRIOT Act, Other Over-broad Surveillance Law
Holt is running for the NJ Senate seat of the late Frank Lautenberg. The primary election [against Cory Booker] is Aug. 13. The special election is on Oct. 16.
Marcy, I hope you will find time to analyze the Amash/Conyers voter more deeply in the coming days. My first thought at the results was a qualified ‘hooray’, because of the bi-partisan, closely-split vote appears to support the actions of Fourth Amendment protection groups. Then I had a cynical second thought, and I’d really like to see your take on this:
The Nugent (Pompero?) vote that preceded the A/C vote was passed 409 to 12 (I don’t have Dem/GOP split). Then the A/C vote lost by 12 votes, 205/217, with Yes votes fairly evenly split between Dems/GOP.
So here’s the cynical thought: The Nugent Amendment (in my limited understanding) ‘left the status quo the same’ — and it won 409 votes. The A/C Amendment would have de-funded ONLY the dragnet collection on all American residents, while leaving the rest of the program the same.
The 409 Nugent Yes votes must contain the 205 Yes votes on A/C. So not only did the A/C vote (narrowly) fail, the Nugent votes passed with the support of the 205 A/C votes. So — the status quo stands, with support of 409 House members.
Did we just get snookered by a dog-and-pony show? Was the Nugent Amendment (keep status quo) the ‘real’ Amendment, while the A/C Amendment was theatre? Or am I just too far, at this point, into total distrust of my government to see straight? (I don’t really expect you to answer this last question.)
And am I living in a fool’s paradise to see the A/C 205 Yes votes as a strategic win for the cause of support for winning back the Fourth Amendment?
Sorry this sounds like a Dear Abby letter. Just sign me —
Confused in America
Nancy Pelosi is my Representative. I was unable to get through to the DC office this afternoon, so I called the local office. In reply to my query about how Pelosi would be voting on the Amash ammendment, the staffer said they couldn’t say because of “security reasons.” Completely unacceptable answer, of course. Probably a sign that she was getting a lot of heat and didn’t want to go on record until she knew how things would unfold. I would still expect better weasel words. Can’t imagine she was getting a lot of calls in favor of the NSA. No matter how cynical I think I’ve become I guess it’s a good thing that I still retain the ability to be shocked and dismayed. You mean we’re not part of the picture?
I may have answered my own question, by re-reading this article at TechDirt:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130723/01361323896/dueling-house-amendments-over-cutting-nsa-surveillance-funding-one-is-red-herring-to-trick-congress.shtml
To summarize, the Amash/Conyers Amendment addressed Section 215 of the Patriot Act. The Nugent/Popero Amendment did not address Section 215 — it addressed the Prism program under Section 702 of FISA and did not address Section 215 of the Patriot Act.
So the back-to-back Amendments did not let Reps vote both For, then Against, continued funding for Section 215 funding for blanket collection of American’s data. If I’m understanding it properly now.
A personal fuck you, er thank you, to the Democratic House Leadership who are responsible for this failure. But, hey, nobody carries White House water like they do.
@C: Yep. The Rogers/Amash thing was a peach. Hoping to exacerbate that to Rogers’ detriment.
@Bitter Angry Drunk:
I was happy to see my previous and current Congresscritters both on the yes list. I wasn’t as sure of the current one – he has his ‘quirks’.
@bmaz: Thank you bmaz, I second that emotion. My congressman, Eric Cant(or won’t), also voted No. It is bipartisan water hauling.
@emptywheel: Yes. I plan to make a few thank you calls and one or two choice “bite me” calls as well.
The real question is how can we make this seem costly from a donations perspective.
@ 10bmaz: I third that emotion. Just emailed my pitiful rep (lower case) j mcnerney CA09 on my disgust. Living in the Central Valley among unthinking repugs, I’d hoped that with Lungren losing in CA03 to Bera, I’d have a voice in governing, even if Galt moved to CA09. WTF. At least Bera voted fuck no.
@Arbusto: Oh, I beat up on my critter, Kyrsten Sinema, pretty good on it too. They deserve it.
@CroneWit: Yeah that was my reading as well. The first vote was sold as clarifying that they cannot collect “content” under one part of the program so it wasn’t contradictory. Having said that the leadership made a point of allowing plenty of time for the former to cut down on time for the latter.
One thing I plan to do, and humbly encourage others to do if like me you are fortunate enough to have a sane rep is to say thanks. They never ever hear that so it makes a big difference when the leadership comes calling to criticize them.
One more example of strange bedfellows is Michele Bachmann, not known for trusting the Obama administration with, well anything, arguing:
This from a woman who is convinced that Anthony Wiener’s wife poses an existential threat to the U.S.
Obama bad, Islamic jihad worse, War on Terrer good. Got it!
@Arbusto: McNurney’s been a disappointment almost from day one. PS we wanted Ami Bera to vote yes. I really wish Dr Bill Durston would have beat Lungren the two times he ran, he would’ve voted the right way on this
Matsui (D) was a surprising yes. I personally know someone she told that we need programs like this to continue — and she voted the right way
Garamendi (D) voted yes.
McClintock (R) voted yes. He has faults, but this vote is not so surprising, because he’s more Libertarian than Republican on civil liberties
@C: Yup, I already did a public thank you on Twitter. I am now represented by a Tea Party wingnut, Ted Yoho. Not only did Yoho vote yes, he also even co-sponsored the bill. When Yoho was elected, I saw him as just a novelty who would vote virtually the same as our previous wingnut Republican representative Cliff Stearns. After being upset by Yoho, Stearns is now a lobbyist with APCO, concentrating, among other things, on telecommunications. He undoubtedly would have voted for more surveillance. At least in this one regard, Yoho has actually been an upgrade for our district.
or the title of this article could be, “Amendment IV of Constitution repudiated/nullified by 7 votes” including Pelosi and Hoyer.
I think it’s remarkable this thing got 205 votes. This issue isn’t going to go away. As we get closer to another election folks won’t have the luxury of voting ‘no’ next time.
@karenjj2: Pelosi 2007 on blogger conference call: