Word: pelosi
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...What motivated Pelosi and the Democrats to incur the wrath of their liberal base and allow one of the Administration's most controversial anti-terror policies to be extended? A mix of politics, pragmatism and some significant concessions...
...First of all, Pelosi wanted the issue off the table for the political campaign this fall. Despite anti-G.O.P. sentiment in the country and record low popularity for President George W. Bush, Democrats still trail on national security, and that could hurt them in Congress. Stonewalling the Administration and letting the surveillance powers expire could have cost the Democrats swing seats they won in 2006 as well as new ones they have a chance to steal from Republicans this November. "For any Republican-leaning district this would have been a huge issue," says a top Pelosi aide, who estimates...
...Pelosi realized that conservative freshman Democrats like Nancy Boyda of Kansas and centrist Southern representatives were willing to squeeze the Administration for a compromise as long as she got one in the end. That made it possible for her to let the Protect America Act - which passed last August and granted full approval to the Adminstration's expansive surveillance powers - expire in February, and set up her negotiating position through the spring...
...Letting the PAA expire was a risk - the Administration pilloried Democrats for being soft on terrorism. But Pelosi successfully parlayed it into specific improvements. For example, under Administration proposals, the telecoms would have received full retroactive immunity from lawsuits brought by civil libertarians alleging they violated the Fourth Amendment by complying with Administration requests to conduct wiretaps following 9/11. In negotiations with Pelosi's office, the telecoms offered a compromise: Let a judge decide if the letters they received from the Administration asking for their help show that the government was really after terrorist suspects and not innocent Americans...
...Pelosi's negotiators felt that was a significant concession. The California district judge who will make the decision in such cases has been sympathetic to some of the civil libertarians' claims. And an adverse decision can be appealed to the liberal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The telecoms are casting it as a victory, and Pelosi's aides acknowledge the telecoms are likely to win immunity in court. But they're getting less than they would have in a Senate version of the bill, and they will hardly have a free ride once litigation and lobbying fees have been added...