It looks like Majority Whip Dick Durbin is telling the press that the FISA vote will be delayed until after the July 4th recess in deference to Sen. Russ Feingold. I’m also hearing that this is not yet a sure bet. If it is true then I’m happy to see Feingold get credit, but Senator Dodd and others deserve credit, too.
Part of this may be as simple as a clogged schedule in the Senate combined with Republican obstruction on the Housing and Medicare bills. But it’s also clear that the Democrats have heard loud and clear that people are not happy with the FISA bill. They are not eager to vote on it before the recess, especially if they can’t get the Housing bill done. Who wants to tell their constituents that they couldn’t do anything about the foreclosure crisis but they had time to help out the telecommunications corporations?
The best we could hope for this week was getting a delay until after the recess so we could get more organized and ramp up the pressure. They tried to ram FISA home without even giving time to the Congress to read the bill. They failed.
We have succeeded in stopping this FISA law for eight months. Maybe we can succeed for another eight. In any case, I hope the reports are correct and all hail Sens. Feingold and Dodd.
