Freshman Democrats key in debate over wiretapping

An unpredictable group of House and Senate freshman Democrats could determine the outcome of the latest debate over President Bush’s foreign-intelligence surveillance program, after they backed a six-month interim bill in August and are now torn over supporting new bills moving through Congress.

Most of these Democrats hail from conservative-leaning districts and states, where there is the perception that Democrats are weaker on national security issues than Republicans. After supporting the White House-backed interim bill last summer, however, a number of the freshmen encountered a strong backlash from Democratic voters and groups concerned over the new authority that the Bush administration won to wiretap Americans without court warrants.

{mosads}“They’re vulnerable because they’re from red states, and they got elected by two percent, one percent, three percent,” said Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), the Judiciary Committee chairman and cosponsor of the House Democrats’ foreign intelligence surveillance bill. The measure could hit the House floor this week.

“They’re a little skittish about this,” he said, and called it “a problem” for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Holding together freshmen is one major problem facing House and Senate Democratic leaders, who are trying to walk a tightrope in reconciling diverging views within their caucuses while attempting to appease their base and look strong on terrorism.

The House and Senate freshman Democrats were largely united on the Democratic leadership-backed measures that failed in August. But they split sharply on the GOP-backed Protect America Act (PAA), which followed the failed Democratic legislation. Most of the Democrats blame the White House for putting them in a tough spot by proposing language that the administration said was desperately needed as Congress was preparing to adjourn for August.

Some said they only voted for the measure knowing that it would expire in February.

In those votes just before the August recess, 12 of the 41 Democrats who backed the PAA were freshmen. At least eight of those 12 Democrats could face tough battles next year. On the Senate side, four first-term Democratic senators supported the PAA, helping the measure attract exactly 60 votes — the number needed for passage.

Upcoming votes in both chambers are expected to be cliffhangers, making all votes that the freshmen cast crucial to the outcome of the debate. The House bill is likely to spark a partisan flap, but the measure moving through the Senate has the potential to rip the Democratic caucus apart.

The Senate Intelligence panel has approved a bill that would establish new procedures for court warrants for foreign-intelligence surveillance on Americans, but some of those provisions did not go far enough to satisfy some liberal Democrats and civil liberties groups.

Most controversial, however, was the measure’s inclusion of a provision that would grant retroactive immunity for telecommunications firms that participated in the National Security Agency’s warrantless eavesdropping program after the September 2001 terrorist attacks. Although the Intelligence panel saw the internal White House documents on the NSA program before it voted on the bill, most freshmen are unlikely to see those papers. That puts them in a tough spot as they decide whether to support a Bush-backed provision to wipe away about 40 lawsuits accusing the companies of giving away private information to the government.

“I’m a little bit concerned  … of fear-mongering and politics by the Bush administration and an enormous amount of confusion kicked up around this,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).

Whitehouse joined 12 of his colleagues in voting for the Intelligence panel’s bill earlier this month. He signaled that there would likely be efforts to alter that language when the Judiciary Committee considers the bill in coming weeks.

House Democrats say their measure, which lacks those immunity provisions, would establish a crucial safeguard missing from the PAA and ensure that Americans’ right to privacy is protected. But Republicans call the plan a step backward, saying it would create new roadblocks for domestic surveillance operations.

“This isn’t the first time freshman Democrats have been caught in the middle of their leaders pulling the party to the far left to appease the liberal base, and it’s not going to be the last,” said Brian Kennedy, a spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio.).

Democrats dismiss those attacks.

“Republicans are going to say we’re weak on terror — that’s their rhetoric, that’s what they’re going to say,” said freshman Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.), who voted for the PAA and is planning on supporting the leading House bill.

A spokesman for Pelosi’s office, Nadeam Elshami, said the Speaker “expects the House to pass” the Democratic bill, which he described as “legislation that enhances our national security while protecting our civil liberties.”

In the first test vote of the new bill, Democrats clearly won over their freshmen when the House approved on Oct. 17 by a 223-196 a closed rule that would limit amendments to the bill sponsored by Conyers and Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas), known by its acronym as the RESTORE Act. There were just three Democratic defectors: Reps. Heath Shuler (N.C.), Baron Hill (Ind.) and Nick Lampson (Texas). All are freshmen who could face tough 2008 elections, and they supported the PAA.

Republicans could win over more freshmen yet. Earlier this month, skittish House leaders had to pull the vote on the underlying bill after Republicans offered a motion to recommit stating that the proposed changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) would not apply to al Qaeda. Had the motion passed, it would have effectively killed the bill, and aides said a number of freshmen and members of the conservative Democratic blue-dog coalition would have likely sided with Republicans had the motion come to a vote.

Other freshman House Democrats who voted for the PAA — Ciro Rodriguez (Texas), Chris Carney (Pa.), Joe Donnelly (Ind.), Brad Ellsworth (Ind.), Harry Mitchell (Ariz.), Zack Space (Ohio), Charlie Wilson (Ohio) and Tim Walz (Minn.) — have either said they were still weighing whether to vote for the Democratic bill or would not respond to requests for comment.

Likewise, first-term Democratic senators who voted for the six-month law — Sens. Ken Salazar (Colo.), Bob Casey (Pa.), Jim Webb (Va.), and Claire McCaskill (Mo.) — said they were still mulling how to handle the new measure.
“[With] our freshman group, sometimes it’s easy to ascertain [our views], but on this bill, I’m not so sure,” Casey said.