Senator Bingaman has just introduced his amendment to the Graham amendment which suspended habeus corpus for detainees.
This is an open thread for the Bingaman amendment, SB2517.
Last minute Senator contact form in support of the amendment here.
The Nation writes of the Graham amendment:
Graham is carrying water for the increasingly embattled Bush Administration on this one, and it may come back to haunt him. The rapid-fire opposition to his bill is being joined by far more than the usual suspects, as Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith write in a new piece on The Nation.com: "John Hutson, a retired rear admiral and former judge advocate general of the Navy, not only protested but organized 60 former military officers to object. The National Institute of Military Justice, the organization of military lawyers, denounced it. High-powered legal scholars like Judith Resnick of Yale Law School, David Shapiro and Frank Michelman of Harvard Law School, and Burt Neuborne of New York University Law School circulated a blistering letter describing the legislation as "an effort to alter fundamental precepts of our constitutional order."
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The tidal wave of opposition seems to having an effect and cooler heads in the Senate are already reconsidering its action. An amendment proposed by Senator Jeff Bingaman, Democrat of New Mexico, which would restore habeas corpus to detainees may come up as early as this week. The Center for Constitutional Rights, which sued the Justice Department on behalf of people held at Guantanamo, is calling for "emergency action" by supporting the Bingaman amendment.
Another article from
The Nation accurately recounts the importance of Graham's amendment:
The Supreme Court has described the writ of habeas corpus as "the fundamental instrument for safeguarding individual freedom against arbitrary and lawless state action." Some of the darkest hours in American history have resulted from its suspension--notably the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, for which the US Congress voted a formal apology a few years ago.
The Center for Constitutional Rights has called for "emergency action" to preserve habeas corpus by supporting the Bingaman amendment. Michael Ratner, head of the Center, warns, "The conscience of our nation is up for grabs."
Update [2005-11-14 15:20:5 by jorndorff]: Sen. Graham is currently defending his amendment, falling back on the peanut butter and DVD argument. Graham continues, "If you don't want to be arrested and detained indefinitely, don't join Al Qaeda."..."These lawsuits are undermining our ability to protect ourselves." Current policy is "Geneva Conventions on steroids." Detainees "are swamping the system."
Feingold up now talking about a sensible time-table in Iraq, another amendment under consideration.
Kerry on Veteran's Day now and Bush's speech. He has the floor for half an hour. Then, Dodd for 10 minutes. Further consideration of amendments likely to continue @ 4:30 eastern.
Sen. Levin is currently pressing for the Dem. amendments to be voted on this evening.
Update [2005-11-14 18:34:29 by jorndorff]: It looks as though further debate on the amendments up for vote will take place tonight, but the votes themselves will take place tomorrow.
[UPDATED] The AP reports a bipartisan compromise over the Graham amendment:
Under the agreement, detainees who receive a punishment of 10 years in prison to death would receive an automatic appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Lesser sentences would not receive automatic review, but detainees still could petition the court to hear their case.
In addition, the 500 or so detainees at the U.S. naval base in Cuba would be allowed to challenge in federal court the procedure under which they were labeled an "enemy combatant."
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The Senate will vote on the compromise provision Tuesday. Approval would mean the Senate endorses the Bush administration's military tribunals for prosecuting suspected foreign terrorists at Guantanamo. The Supreme Court agreed last week to review a constitutional challenge to those tribunals.
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Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., called the compromise "a significant improvement" because it provides a much-needed automatic review by a federal court in death penalty cases and would not strip courts of jurisdiction over the cases of detainees, unlike Graham's original proposal.
Since that vote, Graham has worked with Levin and others to reach a compromise that would alleviate the concerns of senators of both parties and avert a showdown over the original provision.
The Senate is to vote Tuesday on a proposal by Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., that would allow detainees to file habeas corpus petitions, but only in the D.C. appeals court. However, the proposal would prohibit detainees from filing petitions based on claims objecting to living conditions.
Rather than the full restoration of
habeus corpus rights, Graham's amendment to his amendment looks to restrict detainee rights to certain habeus cases. Bingaman's original amendment offers a wider range of rights but faces less of a chance of passage.