Patrick Leahy, Roadblock
HAYES, STEPHEN F.
Patrick Leahy, Roadblock More than any other senator, he has stalled anti-terror bills. BY STEPHEN F. HAYES TWO DAYS after the new era of bipartisanship began, it ended. At least in the...
...At first blush, it seems reasonable to ask for more time to consider such potentially important legislation...
...But there are few subjects over the past several years on which Congress has heard more—and acted less—than terrorism...
...But even after the new Senate language came out Friday morning, administration negotiators were concerned about language added by Leahy and Senate majority leader Tom Daschle on money-laundering...
...Leahy has long been one of the Senate's most liberal and partisan Democrats...
...Kyl's assessment echoes what many other members of Congress are saying privately...
...Something easy like, say, judicial nominations...
...No doubt both sides are eager to get past this partisan wrangling and return to—as the new cliché has it— normalcy...
...The September 13 amendment this year—a more limited proposal than Attorney General John Ashcroft would make days later— brought much the same response from Leahy...
...At least in the Senate...
...Unfortunately, because this is something that we have had no hearings on, we haven't had the discussions in the appropriate committees— Intelligence, Armed Services, and Judiciary—we are somewhat limited in opposition," Leahy complained...
...Last week, when anti-terrorism talks temporarily broke down, Leahy publicly accused the White House of reneging on a previous deal about sharing secret grand jury information...
...Some Republicans say Leahy is uniquely qualified to recognize such double talk...
...Just five months ago, the Senate discussed terrorism and heard from Secretary of State Colin Powell, Attorney General Ashcroft, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and others in the administration...
...Running the Judiciary Committee makes him not only one of the Senate's most liberal and partisan Democrats, but one of its most influential...
...The point is, these issues have been thoroughly discussed...
...Leahy spokesman David Carle rejects suggestions that his boss was simply slowing things down...
...Though the bill's cosponsors agreed to make all but 2 of the 14 changes, Leahy still tried to block the bill...
...He raised the same objections last October when almost singlehanded he foiled an anti-terrorism bill with many of the same provisions...
...Kyl isn't the only Republican irritated with the lack of genuine bipartisanship, and he is not alone in grumbling about Leahy, the new chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee...
...He has been pushing anti-terrorism legislation for years, measures that today—despite widespread consensus among terrorism experts and members of both parties that they are needed—remain mere proposals...
...Senators Orrin Hatch and Jeff Sessions, among others, have grown weary of Leahy's tactics...
...I'm not sure that Senator Leahy even knew all of the work we have done on these issues," says Senator Kyl...
...Notwithstanding the fact that he should have...
...But if Kyl is particularly glum, he has good reason...
...On September 13, Senator Jon Kyl, one of the chamber's top experts on terrorism, introduced an amendment to an appropriations bill that would give law enforcement some of the additional tools President Bush is seeking...
...with him among Republicans at the federal level," says a Senate leadership aide, of the senior senator from Vermont...
...The administration was "agnostic" on the particulars, but fought to keep the language out in order to expedite passage of the anti-terrorism legislation alone...
...But Leahy wasn't done...
...It appears to me that his objections constantly evolve," says a senior GOP aide...
...Apparently last night the administration changed its mind and [is] not going to go forward with changes in grand jury proceedings," Leahy said on Tuesday, suggesting a deal had been close...
...When fellow Vermonter Jim Jeffords gave Democrats control of the Senate by bailing on the GOP in May, and when Senator Joe Biden passed up the top spot on Judiciary in favor of the same position on Foreign Relations, Leahy lucked into a chairmanship that has boosted his stature...
...Although the Ashcroft proposal— which later became the focus of the anti-terrorism discussion—did contain some new items, the September 13 amendment was based almost entirely on last year's Kyl/Feinstein bill...
...I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he just didn't know about it," says Kyl, with a roll of his eyes...
...The negotiations were fluid until Tuesday, when our negotiations with Leahy completely stalled," says a Justice Department official familiar with the talks...
...Put aside for a moment the argument Leahy makes for delay—"we are somewhat limited in opposi-tion"—and consider just his point about hearings...
...Eventually, it passed the Senate without Leahy's support, but far too late in the term to win consideration in the House...
...Still, they fear more delays as they attempt to smooth out differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill...
...Both administration and Judiciary Committee sources say that much of the hard work on the anti-terrorism legislation is done...
...And that legislation, in turn, essentially repackaged the recommendations of the most recent terrorism study, a report by the 1999 National Commission on Terrorism...
...Last year, Leahy promised he'd move the bill after the Clinton Justice Department signed off on it...
...Mission accomplished...
...I would feel far more comfortable voting on something like this if these various committees not only had a chance to look at it," he continued, "but that President Bush's administration— the attorney general, the director of the CIA, the secretary of defense— would have the opportunity to let us know their views on it...
...Given his record of blocking or slowing anti-terrorism measures, Senate Republicans and administration officials expected resistance when it became clear that Leahy would be the Democrats' voice on the Ashcroft proposals...
...The alleged bipartisanship you refer to is a myth," Senator Kyl, an Arizona Republican, told me late last week...
...There's just a lot of frustration Stephen F. Hayes is a staff writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...Since many of the tools in the bill were powers that FBI Director Louis Freeh had been requesting for years, the department gave a thumbs-up after some minor tweaking...
...It's really quite partisan under the surface, and I expect it to remain so...
...Soon after registering those objections, he came up with another four...
...Whatever is convenient, he objects to...
...There is a lot of rhetoric about bipartisanship, but it's nonsense...
...His staff submitted a list of 10 changes to the bill's cosponsors, Senator Kyl and Senator Dianne Feinstein, then the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee's Technology, Terrorism and Government Information subcommittee...
...They weren't even returning our phone calls or e-mails...
...Hundreds of experts, dozens of hearings, and three commissions later—no action...
...They call Leahy's characterization "inaccurate...
...Senator Leahy is the chief reason for the inaction...
...Administration sources close to the negotiations, meanwhile, say that there never was such a deal-before-the-deal...
...Leahy's arguments against the September 13 amendment to the Commerce/Justice/State appropriations bill—principally that the Senate was moving too quickly and that senators had not yet heard from the administration—were familiar...
...His aim wasn't to see how much he could take out of the president's bill, but to make sure there were proper checks and balances that struck an appropriate balance with civil liberties in giving new powers to government...
...But Senator Patrick Leahy, one of the chamber's top experts on delaying anti-terrorism legislation, moved quickly to defeat it...
Vol. 7 • October 2001 • No. 5
