There is a lot of debate in the public space this week over the impact of the United States Supreme Court's ruling that gives detainees in a "holding pattern" at Guantanamo Bay access to the United States Courts for the purpose of presenting petitions of habeas corpus.
It is a generally accepted misunderstanding that the Court's ruling gave new rights to the detainees, which seems to be the issue that is the most controversial.
The purpose of today's discussion is to explain why that view of the ruling is dead wrong...and to offer some thoughts on why this ruling might actually be one of the most important "restraint of government" rulings to have come down the pike in some time.
In our attempts to build a large Democratic trifecta in Washington, D.C., what, exactly, are we fighting for? To answer that question, here is a comprehensive list of legislation that is certain to pass if Obama wins the White House, we pick up 20 more seats in the House, and 8 more seats in the Senate:
Webb amendment to HR 1585: To specify minimum periods between deployment of units and members of the Armed Forces for Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.
I have organized this list starting with Iraq, then labor, then election reform, then habeas corpus, then health care, then energy / global warming. Additionally, all twelve departmental appropriations bills, as well as the national budget, will be significantly different from their current incarnations.
Overall, this is pretty much a wave of centrist legislation. We will give troops more time at home, and withdraw about 70-75% of them from Iraq, but not all of them. We will expand health care, but it won't be universal. We will restore some civil liberties, but not all of them. We will get some immigration reform, but not much. Something will be done about sustainability in energy, global warming and agriculture, but nowhere near enough. So, we are going to begin with a centrist template, but at least we will have to fight to make all of these bits of legislation better. Having even that opportunity will be a dramatic improvement. With Bush in office and only 50 Senators, right now progressive legislation is impossible.
The most exciting bits are the positive, progressive feedback loops around increasing unionization (the employee free choice act) and election reform (D.C. voting rights, verified paper trails). These are laws that will make the country itself more progressive, thus building a progressive majority down the road. If we can get more of these, including sweeping media reform (about which we should be optimistic), real immigration reform, (about which I am not optimistic) and the progressive budget (which might just happen by 2011, if all goes well), then we will be on our way to a progressive majority in America that will last for an entire generation.
A newly declassified document shows that J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had a plan to suspend habeas corpus and imprison some 12,000 Americans he suspected of disloyalty.
Hoover sent his plan to the White House on July 7, 1950, 12 days after the Korean War began. It envisioned putting suspect Americans in military prisons.
Hoover wanted President Harry S. Truman to proclaim the mass arrests necessary to "protect the country against treason, espionage and sabotage." The F.B.I would "apprehend all individuals potentially dangerous" to national security, Hoover's proposal said. The arrests would be carried out under "a master warrant attached to a list of names" provided by the bureau.
The names were part of an index that Hoover had been compiling for years. "The index now contains approximately twelve thousand individuals, of which approximately ninety-seven per cent are citizens of the United States," he wrote.
"In order to make effective these apprehensions, the proclamation suspends the Writ of Habeas Corpus," it said.
Habeas corpus, the right to seek relief from illegal detention, has been a fundamental principle of law for seven centuries. The Bush administration's decision to hold suspects for years at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has made habeas corpus a contentious issue for Congress and the Supreme Court today.
The Constitution says habeas corpus shall not be suspended "unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it." The plan proposed by Hoover, the head of the F.B.I. from 1924 to 1972, stretched that clause to include "threatened invasion" or "attack upon United States troops in legally occupied territory."
After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush issued an order that effectively allowed the United States to hold suspects indefinitely without a hearing, a lawyer, or formal charges. In September 2006, Congress passed a law suspending habeas corpus for anyone deemed an "unlawful enemy combatant."
Weiner pretty adroitly nails the historical connections in a very straightforward way. It's not impossible for the corporate media to report things accurately.
So, this week we get our shot at the plate to restore one of the most fundamental American rights -- the right to challenge government detention before a fair and independent court.
Senator Leahy just introduced his bill, *The Habeas Corpus Restoration Act,* on the floor of the U.S. Senate and debate is well underway. The bill is co-sponsored by Senator Chris Dodd and the two are working together hand-in-hand to rally the grassroots in support of the legislation.
It's going to be a tremendously close vote, and this is one of those situations where your support could mean the difference between passage and failure.
Over the coming days we'll be rolling out a full suite of tools to arm yourself for battle. The first of which is a "Citizen Generated Whip Count" tool that will allow you to contact, record, and track responses from grassroots phonebanking taking place across the country.
Until then, please consider becoming a citizen co-sponsor of the bill as a first step.
A while back, dating to our time at MyDD, Matt and I asked everyone for input on a poll on Habeas Corpus. At long last, I am happy to show you the memo that came from the poll:
A solid 63% majority of American voters say they favor passage of legislation that would "give Guantánamo detainees the legal right to have their detention reviewed in federal court, and require the government to demonstrate that it has a lawful reason to imprison them." Only one-third (32%) of voters express opposition. This level of support for habeas is more impressive still when one considers that survey participants had been informed that the detainees are "accused terrorists."
Support for the habeas legislation is broad, extending across many demographic lines (see table). For example, we find majority support among both men and women; among whites, African Americans, and Hispanics; and in all regions of the country. Crucial swing political constituencies also voice solid approval, including 66% of independents, 69% of presidential swing voters, and 71% of moderates. Although Republicans are opposed by 58% to 39%, strong opposition is limited to a narrow political base of conservative Republicans (66% opposed) and GOP men (69% opposed). By contrast, a majority of GOP women (53%) and a plurality of moderate-to-liberal Republicans (50%) favor the habeas legislation.
No real surprise there: Republicans are generally opposed to where the rest of the country stands on an issue. Of course, for a long time we have known that the public is on our side when it comes to most issues, but that isn't always enough. As such, of particular interest is how the poll tested the effectiveness of various messaging on Habeas Corpus, providing progressives with insights on how to proceed:
Americans respond strongly to the message that current policy is un-American and contradicts basic American values, especially freedom. Two of the three most convincing pro-habeas messages tested make the case that the Bush policy violates core American values. By appealing to voters' pride in America as a beacon of freedom, these messages resonate even with many who would not instinctively oppose the administration.
The current policy is un-American and contradicts basic American values. We are people who believe in freedom and human rights. We need to defend ourselves against terrorism, but to do that we don't have to give up the values that make America great. (60% very convincing)
Countries such as Cuba, China, and North Korea deny the right of judicial review to those imprisoned by the government. That is not the kind of company the United States of America wants to keep. (60% very convincing)
Voters are more concerned about America-our values and our security- than about those being detained. Independents, moderates, and presidential swing voters believe that upholding American values and keeping America safe are more important than protecting the rights of accused terrorists. Habeas opponents will try to make this a debate about the detainees and what level of legal rights they are (or are not) entitled to; habeas supporters should want a debate over whether the Bush policy violates our national principles and puts Americans at risk.
Expressing this idea in legal or constitutional terms is less effective. Voters respond more favorably when the case for habeas is stated in terms of core values and fundamental principles, rather than legal or constitutional rights. Even many Americans who oppose the current detainee policy are not easily persuaded that their own civil liberties are in jeopardy. Furthermore, arguments about constitutional rights are easily undercut by a conservative response informing voters that only non-citizens, not U.S. citizens, are denied habeas.
Expressing their positions in terms of values is something that Democrats and progressives have often failed to do. It is much easier to organize a broad coalition for any goal when it is based in values and visions of how the government should operate, or what the country should look like, than it is around specific, wonkier tasks. In other words, you are not going to be as successful building a broad coalition around reducing carbon emissions by 80% by 2050 as you are around making sure that a healthy environment is a positive value unto itself and as such preserved for future generations instead of exploited by wealthy interests. This is also, I think, one of the reasons why impeachment campaigns have struggled, since they are not connected to a broader movement based on how government should operate, but are instead a specific campaign centered around Bush and Cheney. A more successful impeachment campaign would have grown out of a coalition that supports a broad vision of government, of which Bush and Cheney are simply two negative examples rather than the whole problem.
Anyway, check out the whole memo. You input helped form it, and as such will hopefully help put Democrats down a more successful road in terms of strategy on civil liberties.
Based on the Bush Dog vital statistics chart that I produced yesterday, which I think can serve as an important reference point for the upcoming campaign against the Bush Dogs, over the last 24 hours I have discovered some more useful information about this caucus:
Of the thirty-eight members listed in the Bush Dog chart I produced yesterday, twenty-seven of the them were in the 109th Congress. Twenty-two of those twenty-seven voted in favor of the 2006 Military Commissions Act, and only ten other Democrats voted in favor of destroying habeas corpus. Cooper, Costa, Lipinski, Melancon, and Snyder actually showed some decency on that vote. Now, of those five, three come from solidly blue districts (Cooper, Costa and Lipinski), one come from a swing district (Snyder) and one comes from a red district (Melancon).
In 2005, looking at those same twenty-seven members, only Gordon, Matheson, Peterson, Salazar, Snyder, and Tanner voted against the reauthorization of the Patriot Act. In this case, none of them are from blue districts, but some of them are from swinging districts.
Looking further back, only seventeen of these thirty-eight members were in Congress in 2002, during the vote to authorize the use of military force in Iraq. Every single one of them, except Rep. Snyder, voted in favor of the use of military force.
Considering that his name keeps appearing on these lists, I am starting to think that there is real hope for Representative Vic Snyder. It is always possible to stop being a Bush Dog. It also makes me wonder if there is any hope at all for the older members who never appeared as exceptions to any of these votes: Boswell, Boyd, Cramer, Edwards, Etheridge, McIntyre, Pomeroy, Ross and Tanner. They just appear to be neo-cons. Considering that Leonard Boswell's district is both in Iowa and lean Democratic, that might be a nice high visibility location to run a primary challenge. It wouldn't even be a waste of money, either, considering that the DCCC is constantly forced to spends money to defend Boswell, who appears to be a weak candidate, in that district. Rather than giving money to the DCCC to defend a Democratic neocon, let's defeat Boswell in a primary, and then give money to the DCCC so they can support someone else as the Democratic nominee. That way, the money the DCCC spends in the districts won't be such a waste.
Disturbingly, fully twenty-one of the Bush Dogs have entered Congress since 2002. while that still makes them only about 25-30% of the new Democratic members since that time, that also means they have a larger presence among newer members than they have of older members, where they are only about 10% of the Democratic House population. This makes me wonder just how anti-progressive Democratic House recruiting practices were from 2001-2006. To a very real extent, Democrats seem to have brought this working conservative majority on themselves. DCCC Chair Chris Van Hollen can complain about the Bush Dog campaign all he wants, but until he demonstrates improved recruiting practices on behalf of the DCCC, I am not budging.
36 of the 38 Bush Dogs are men, with only Melissa Bean and Stephanie Herseth Sandlin representing women. By way of contrast, 48 of the 194 Democrats in Congress who are not Bush Dogs are women. Overall, that is a difference of 5.3% to 27.4% female representation. Being a Bush Dog, and supporting neo-conservative foreign policy despite being a Democrat, seems to be a male habit. In fact, I think there is a much more direct correlation to Bush Dogs being male Blue Dogs, than there is to them being Blue Dogs from red districts. It is a dude thing.
All food for thought. You can sign up for email alerts on our Bush Dog campaign in the upper right hand corner of Open Left. Also, you can read the entire Open Left Bush Dog archive here. The more we learn about these problem Democrats, the better our campaign against them will become. Keep digging.
