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I am a Ron Paul supporter, and have had an account here for a year or so. This is the first time I’ve posted, but I don’t see a post on this and may have information you don’t.
Rand Paul in February objected to an attempt at unanimous consent to extend the Patriot Act without a vote (on motion, without objection.) That meant it has to go through a vote and cloture for the first time since the first time it was up, right after 9/11. However, they called for a cloture vote for 5pm Monday, when Rand Paul was supposed to be out of D.C. I get the impression he now intends to be there, from the way the Campaign for Liberty email was written, but it doesn’t expressly say so. The relevant language is:
Dear Patriot,On Thursday, Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell collaborated with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in a backroom pact to extend the so-called “Patriot” Act - with as little debate as possible – for 4 years before some of the most liberty-savaging components expire on Friday, May 27.
The surveillance state’s ability to snoop through your business records, pry into your library book checkouts, monitor so-called “lone wolfs,” and spy on your personal communications through roving wiretaps will be extended until 2015, which “coincidentally” is not an election year.
So much for all that lofty rhetoric last fall about adhering to the Constitution.
By taking a chainsaw to the Fourth Amendment, they have pledged their allegiance to the Surveillance State.
Even more galling, a cloture vote is scheduled for 5PM Monday, because they believed Senator Rand Paul would be out of town, and they would have a free hand to slip extending the government’s domestic spying capabilities through without anyone noticing.
Would people here be willing to join us in calling reps and Boehner and Reid to object to this war on the American people? You can find Senator information through www.senate.gov and House Rep information through www.house.gov.
We may not win, but we shouldn’t make it easy.
Thanks.
RP12
4 Comments
This all seems like it is happening to fast. Did the patriot act extension already get passed through the house? Last I heard it had just made it out of committee.
Thanks for the heads up! I am also a RP supporter. I am counting on Rand to put up a fight on this.
I think they are starting in the Senate because if it passes there they think they can shove it down the House. If Rand objects, other Tea Partiers in the house will be exposed if they vote wrong. Wonder what Bachmann will do this time? She took grief on her vote for the Patriot Act last time and is trying to lead the tea party…..
Thanks very much for posting this diary, rp12. I’m sorry that your important alert disappeared without a trace on MyFDL. I missed it completely myself until Juan Cole (of all people, since he’s busy cheering on the patently-unConstitutional presidential war against Libya) linked to it today on CommonDreams – which I in turn found through a link at another blog site I was scanning. Perhaps Monday morning would be a good time to post another diary here with any new information you’ve gathered, in hopes of getting readers to understand that this is NOT yet a lost cause, despite the heavy spin that the dealmakers are generating. Because you’re absolutely right that although we may not win, we shouldn’t make it easy for them.
Thank you for updating us about the Paul email alert. I’d wondered in a Friday comment detailing Monday’s cloture vote whether Rand Paul had somehow been silenced on this matter since February. He has a real opportunity to make a difference here, if he chooses, as does Mike Lee, and/or other Senators ready to walk their Constitutional talk. [It will take real guts for those rookie Senators to face down their Party leadership, but the rookies seem to be the only ones the American people have on their side at this stage.]
As outlined below, the best options for effective action at this point are NOT simply to beg and plead with corrupt, cowardly Party leadership. Instead, bringing needed attention to this underhanded deal via blogs, coupled with principled action by just one independent-minded Senator, could make a profound impact, if the plan is well-prepared.
I compiled the following information for a comment to the ACLU blog post this morning – although if the comment will be posted, it hasn’t been yet – describing the next procedural steps on S. 1038 that we should expect to see unfold in the Senate this week:
1. There WILL be a vote on Monday (tomorrow), at 5 p.m., on the Reid/Democratic caucus-filed motion to invoke cloture (to end debate) on Harry Reid’s motion to proceed to S. 1038 (BOTH motions were filed last Thursday, the same day that S. 1038 was introduced). [Even though, as indicated in the ACLU blog post, the referenced debate on the motion to proceed won't even BEGIN until 3 p.m. on Monday, if then.]
2. The cloture motion vote on Monday of course requires 60 votes to pass.
3. IF the cloture motion on the motion to proceed to S. 1038 passes Monday, under the rules (see Part 2 of Rule XXII), there are 30 hours of post-cloture debate on the motion to proceed that must then follow (before a vote on the motion to proceed itself) UNLESS EVERY SENATOR agrees to WAIVE that time. This is where opponents may easily object, to delay further action on S. 1038 for potentially up to three days. But if, instead, the actual motion to proceed is unanimously or otherwise adopted on Monday or Tuesday, it’s because NO ONE in the Senate objected to speeding this bill through, as Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell and Barack Obama desire (but CANNOT dictate, please note, without the sanction of every Senator).
4. AFTER the motion to proceed is adopted (assuming Monday’s cloture motion is approved, and after the 30 hours of post-cloture debate are tolled or waived, AND the motion to proceed itself is approved by simple majority), the same process will repeat on the bill itself. That is, there will likely be another cloture motion filed by the Democrats IMMEDIATELY AFTER the motion to proceed is passed (before any debate on the bill itself begins). The vote on THAT cloture motion (unless the rules are waived by every Senator) can’t be held until the second day after it’s filed (so on Thursday, if the motion is filed on Tuesday, for example). Again, if the second cloture motion (to bring debate on the bill itself to an end) passes, 30 hours of post-cloture debate must toll before a simple-majority vote on final passage of the legislation may occur, unless every Senator agrees to waive that debate time.
In short, clearly there IS an opportunity – contrary to the intentional “the fix is in, resistance is futile” leaks from Party leadership being parroted by the media – for our Senators to do their Constitutional duty by STOPPING this crooked deal in its tracks this week, in advance of their planned Memorial Day recess.
What’s needed for Senators to slow this bill down isn’t physical stamina or supreme debating skills, but MORAL COURAGE to do their duty in the face of ugly, undemocratic power plays and bullying from Party leadership and the White House.
Is there a single United States Senator remaining today who has the integrity and moral courage to do their sworn duty as a representative of the American people, even though it displeases the private Party that funds their campaign(s) for that high public office in our Republic?
In fact, I highly recommend that you consider at least reposting this diary, if not writing a new diary, rp12, because it now appears to me that you’re another innocent victim of an uncorrected MyFDL software bug, which my last diary here also fell victim to.
Based on the timestamp of your diary posting, this diary should still be visible on the MyFDL “Recent Diaries” list – because the last diary on that list at this time (5:30 p.m. Eastern on Sunday) was posted at about 1:00 p.m. Eastern time (10 a.m. Pacific) on Saturday, and yours not until 8:30 p.m. on Saturday evening. Presumably, like mine, your diary first appeared at least half-way down the “Recent Diaries” list, leapfrogging others that had already been posted for hours. [The bug seems to have something to do with time zones, because in affected diaries, the comments (like mine just above) are suddenly timed in Eastern time, rather than the usual Pacific time zone of FDL/MyFDL.]
In short, unless I’m missing something, your time-sensitive diary very unfortunately did not get a fair shake at attention here, because of the flawed MyFDL software. In my opinion, that gives you the right to give it another go, if you so desire – either with the same diary or with another, similar diary ahead of tomorrow’s cloture vote.