Breaking: HUGE victory in retroactive immunity fight

[aggiesal]

As they say ... Breaking News from the Senate.

Forgive me if some of this is in the weeds, I'll try and make the parliamentary process as
painless as possible.

1. Within the last hour, the Senate Judiciary Committee just reported out a FISA bill that DOES
NOT include retroactive immunity for the telecom companies that helped the Bush Administration
spy on Americans.
2. This means the Judiciary bill moves to the full Senate WITHOUT the dangerous language
included.
3. Retroactive immunity will, however, surely be introduced as an amendment to the FISA bill.
4. If needed Senator Dodd will filibuster any amendment seeking to add retroactive immunity to
the underlying bill. By filibustering, he will force the opposition to find 60 votes to pass the
provision.

It will be a lot more difficult for those who would enable the erosion of our Constitution to find
the 60 votes necessary to stop immunity on its own than it would be for us to find the 40 needed
to sustain a filibuster of the bill as a whole if it included immunity.

Today is a great victory for all of us -- and another example of Chris Dodd's leadership.

If it wasn't for our efforts, together, retroactive immunity would be well on its way to sailing
through the Senate ... largely unnoticed.

The fight continues, for sure, but this was a big victory today.

Visit www.ChrisDodd.com for more updates as they happen.

We'll be in touch.

Tim Tagaris
Chris Dodd for President

[opihimoimoi]

1. Thank You....It was a Major Victory....

[madfloridian]

2. It apparently goes to full Senate....doesn't seem over.

"The Senate Judiciary Committee punted on Thursday over whether to shield telecommunications companies from civil lawsuits for allegedly helping the government eavesdrop on Americans.

That decision -- the main sticking point in a rewrite of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act -- will be left to the full Senate."

http://mydd.com/

If Dems voted against it going out of committee won't it fare worse in full Senate?

[aggiesal]

4. No, because ...

since the retroactive immunity language was left out,
Senator Dodd will filibuster any amendment to the bill to include the retroactive immunity
for the telecom's.

It will be a lot more difficult for those who would include the retroactive immunity to find
the 60 votes necessary to stop the filibuster, than it would be to find the 40 votes needed
to sustain a filibuster if the bill had included the retroactive immunity language.

This is a huge win.

[peacetalksforall]

3. Yes, good news and we thank Dodd and Leahy/Feingold. Question -

what is meant by the words above - "largely unnoticed", if you know.

It's the fourth line from the bottom -

"If it wasn't for our efforts, together, retroactive immunity would be well on its way to sailing
through the Senate ... largely unnoticed."

If Dems are in charge, how could Dems not notice? How does that work. I thought that was when the Republicans sneaked something in or out and then sneakily did not allow viewing? Hasn't it been noticed all week? I am always learning. Probably simple, but I'm not understanding. Thanks.

[MonkeyFunk]

5. That's very cool....

Nice to hear some good news.

[AX10]

6. Thank you Chris!