Sunday, July 2nd, 2006...7:13 am
Next, the Senator Edits His Old Year Book to Make Himself Look Cooler
Mo Udall, who I don’t quote enough, noted in Too Funny to Be President that the right of a member of the House or Senate to retroactively “revise and extend” his or her remarks means that they really give three speeches: the one they wanted to give, the one they gave, and the one they wish they gave.
Oh course, there is also the speech that you didn’t give at all but pretended to give.
Our own Senator Jon Kyl and South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham filed an amicus brief in the Hamdan v Rumsfeld case. They cited “legislative history.” The two of them pointed to a colloquy that they had durring the debate on the Detainee Treatment Act, saying that it reflected the views of congress when passing the bill.
Well, leaving aside the question of whether or not two Senators talking represents the views of the whole congress, the trouble is that they didn’t actually have the colloquy.
They were able to “revise and extend” their remarks and added them to the Congressional Record shortly before the law was passed. How can they reflect the direction of the debate when they were added long after the debate was finished?
What is even more amusing is that their remarks included an interruption from Senator Sam Brownback. Back in March, Slate and SCOTUSblog did some stories on this incident (SCOTUSblog story here). Brownback’s office told Emily Bazelon of Slate that the debate was indeed live, but a quick perusal of the video of the debate clearly show it not to be true.
When the Supreme Court issued its decision in the Hamdan case last week, Justice John Paul Stevens included the following in his footnote:
While statements attributed to the final bill’s two other sponsors, Senators Graham and Kyl, arguably contradict Senator Levin’s contention that the final version of the Act preserved jurisdiction over pending habeas cases … those statements appear to have been inserted in the Congressional Record after the Senate debate … All statements made during the debate itself support Senator Levin’s understanding that the final text of the DTA would not render subsection (e)(1) applicable to pending cases.
So, obviously, this little trick didn’t fool the audience that it was supposed to fool. However, Justice Antonin Scalia, who pooh-poohs “legislative history” arguments all the time, did, however, cite Kyl’s and Graham’s statements.
What is interesting is that although our own senator, one up for re-election this year, gets a finger wagging for trying to fool the Supreme Court in one of the biggest cases of this term, and there seems to be no interest from our local media. Come on, wake up guys!
3 Comments
July 2nd, 2006 at 8:50 am
Tedski
This is a very interesting and insightful post. Maybe the local media does not cover it because it goes well beyond the sound bite piece or visceral sob story that they prefer to cover.
Either way I sincerely hope that the Democratic nominee for President in 2008 makes a huge issue out of the poor treatment of the Gitmo detainees. (It will be a real Dukakis / Mondale move.)
In fact I think Pederson should immediately make this the central point of his campaign. If elected Senator I will do more to represent the interests of terrorists and see that they get better treatment. Please Jim run on that issue.
July 3rd, 2006 at 9:47 pm
If Scalia quoted it thinking it was part of the debate, then he really does look like the fool. And this is a guy the right likes to hold up as a ‘keen judicial mind.’
July 4th, 2006 at 4:49 pm
Phx kid,
It may not be the end all and be all of issues, but it is something worthy of note. Certainly, much more so than any aspect of a candidate’s personal life.
Wasn’t it your party that made character such a central issue in the 1990s?
Kyl’s surreptitious attempts to rewrite the debate after the fact (when no one could challenge his revision) speaks volumes about his character.
If this is how he conducts himself in public life, he has no business representing the honest people of Arizona.
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