Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2006 | 7:45 a.m.
WASHINGTON - Facing criticism from his own party, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid on Monday defended his decision not to try to block legislation on the treatment and prosecution of military detainees.
Reid said in an interview with the Sun that real-world politics kept him from using his powers to try to scuttle the bill. Given the current political climate, he could not find 41 Democrats needed to mount a filibuster.
With the midterm elections just five weeks away, some Democrats were not willing to sidetrack the legislation because it would open them to Republican charges that they were soft on national security.
Reid voted against the bill. But his refusal to try to do more drew outrage from constitutional-rights advocates who said the party caved on one of the most historic votes of American principles in this era. A New York Times editorial before last week's vote said that if ever there was a time to filibuster, this was it.
The legislation gives President Bush broad authority to define the tough interrogation techniques used on military detainees. It also prevents prisoners from fully questioning their detention.
In the interview at his office Monday, Reid said the Senate's 65-34 vote on the bill shows he made the right decision in abandoning the filibuster and instead attempting to improve the legislation with amendments.
Thirty-four votes, he said, does not a filibuster make. Reid needed 41 votes to use the stalling tactic because the 100-member Senate can end a filibuster with 60 votes.
"I don't live in a world of make-believe," Reid told the Sun. "It's real-world here, and you can only do what you can do."
"There may be some who thought we could do better," he said. "We did the best we could."
Party strategists have said Reid's plan was the correct one - offer amendments and get Republicans on the record opposing them.
Democrats offered five amendments, including one by Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania who sought to improve detainees' access to habeas corpus reviews. It was rejected on a 51-48 vote. The others were also rejected despite support from almost all of the 44 Democrats.
"We worked hard to try to improve that," Reid said. "I thought we did a really good job of, first of all, forcing them to allow us to have amendments, and the amendments we offered I thought were tremendously important amendments."
The 109th session has been criticized as a do-nothing Congress, even though Republicans control the House, the Senate and the White House. It has met for fewer days than most and has been unable to tackle tough issues on many Americans' minds. Members left over the weekend to resume campaigning for the Nov. 7 elections.
Reid is quick to use the do-nothing label. But he said Democrats' approach to the session was to do no more harm. He listed major Republican policies that Democrats successfully blocked, including Bush's signature proposal to privatize Social Security and to curtail estate taxes.
"We were able to stop some very mean-spirited things," Reid said.
Republicans call Democrats obstructionists for defeating such proposals.
Reid's Democratic opposition to the estate-tax bill floored Republican leadership in the summer. Republicans had linked the cuts, which would have benefited only the wealthiest of Americans, to a minimum-wage proposal that Democrats said would end up cutting pay for tip earners in Nevada and six other states. The bill died 56-42.
"I am confounded, there is no other way to put it," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said after the vote. "My colleagues on the other side of the aisle come to this floor, time and again, raving about a 'do-nothing' Congress. Well, today, just a few minutes ago, we had yet another opportunity to do something - as we have already many times this Congress."
The presiding officer of the Senate then turned to Reid for final comments.
"Mr. President," Reid said, "everyone will be relieved to know I don't have anything to say."
"We had a number of stunning victories like that," Reid said Monday. "We stopped the awful things they were trying to do. That's what I feel best about."
archive
