Three Cheers for Senate Judiciary

After the Senate Intelligence Committee voted to include telecom immunity in any eavesdropping and wiretapping bill, it seemed unlikely that it would be stripped out before going to a vote in the full Senate. Fortunately, however, the Judiciary Committee came riding to the rescue. In a markup session today, procedural maneuvers enabled Chairman Pat Leahy to vote the bill, without telecom immunity, out of committee and onto the Senate floor. Greg Sargent has the details at TPM Election Central. Russ Feingold tried to take immunity out the old-fashioned way, by offering an amendment. Unfortunately, committee members--including some Democrats, who outnumber Republicans 10-9--voted Feingold's amendment down. But when Arlen Specter offered a "compromise" that would still have let the telecoms off the hook, he encountered what Sargent described as a "procedural difficulty." This allowed Leahy to circumvent the vote on the amendment entirely and move to vote on the bill without any reference to immunity at all. He held all the Democrats, including likely defector Diane Feinstein, and passed the stripped bill out of committee.

Sargent also reported that aides to Harry Reid suggested this Judiciary Committee version is the one most likely to be considered by the full Senate. If that's the case, any consideration of telecom immunity would have to be introduced all over again by a new amendment. If that comes to pass, Chris Dodd has already gone on record as being willing to filibuster against it. I won't be optimistic enough to suggest that this in itself is enough to ensure immunity won't come back to bite us, but it is one more barrier.

Sometimes things work out the way you'd like them to.