Democrats trying to avoid filibuster of Patriot Act

Democrats trying to avoid filibuster of Patriot Act


With House passage of the USA PATRIOT Act reauthorization conference report expected as early as today, Senate Democrats are mapping out a delicate strategy to block one of President Bush’s top legislative priorities while hoping to avoid the stigma of filibustering homeland security measures, ROLL CALL reports Wednesday... Excerpts:


A handful of Senate Republicans are already planning to oppose the report over civil liberties concerns, even as leading Democrats are pushing the Senate to put off debate on the bill until next year, while stopping short of calling for a filibuster.

Barring that, Sen. Leahy (D-VT) is pushing his bill to extend current law for three months while negotiators continue talks, Carle said. Already, several Republicans have signed onto the bill, including Sens. John Sununu (R-NH), Larry Craig (R-ID), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE), according to Carle.


Any discussion of a filibuster by Democrats is sure to be clouded by their memories of the 2002 election, in which they saw then-Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.), who lost the use of his legs and right arm in the Vietnam War, defeated after Republican Saxby Chambliss ran ads attacking him for voting “against the president’s vital homeland security efforts 11 times.” Cleland’s defeat is often pointed to as a low point in relations between the two parties on Capitol Hill, but also underscored Democrats’ vulnerabilities on security issues.
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Democrats_trying_to_avoid_filibuster_of_1214.html
http://rollcall.com/issues/51_63/news/11567-1.html

w/o a filibuster but I'm doubtful.

didn't lose because of what they did or didn't do,
say or didn't say.

They lost to the FUCKING CORRUPT VOTING MACHINES.