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View From the Hill--Part the First

Gabe Rottman,
Legislative Counsel,
老澳门开奖结果 Washington Legislative Office
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April 20, 2007

Much of our responsibility here at findhabeas.com is to update you kind readers on the legislative prospects for restoring habeas and due process. So, I芒鈧劉m going to create a regular feature here, where we rundown the view from the Hill. I芒鈧劉ll post new dispatches as events warrant.First off, there are basically three ways the and the problem provisions in the (the DTA, for those in the know) could get fixed or repealed. The first is the introduced by Mr. H芒鈧劉s , Chris Dodd, Democrat from Connecticut.That bill, the Restoring the Constitution Act of 2007, would repeal much of the MCA, restore habeas rights for the Gitmo detainees, and create a fully legitimate process for charging and trying the detainees芒鈧漟inally and fairly convicting the guilty and acquitting the innocent.It芒鈧劉s high time we separated out the Khaled El-Masris from the .Unfortunately, even with the current makeup of the Senate, it芒鈧劉s pretty certain that the RCA wouldn芒鈧劉t survive a cloture vote. That said, if enough people start looking for the big H.C., who knows what could happen? Incidentally, current Senate cosponsors of the Dodd bill are listed , and in the House .The other option is the fix sponsored by and Democratic Representative (and chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee on Judiciary) from New York.That bill, the 芒鈧揌abeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007芒鈧 basically gives Gitmo detainees the ability to file a habeas petition under statute. The Nadler House bill also permits detainees to use American violations of certain treaty obligations as grounds for certain claims.In the Senate, the Specter bill is by most of the same folks as the Dodd bill, with some notable exceptions, including Senators Rockefeller from West Virginia, Salazar from Colorado, and Clinton from New York, who are on the Specter bill but not the Dodd bill.Again, thanks to all the sponsors and cosponsors of these bills. At least the word 芒鈧揾abeas芒鈧 is echoing in the Capitol rotunda, tickling the feet of that awfully statuesque giantess芒鈧漷he .Finally, the third option is to stick a new bill as a rider on defense authorization. That would, similar to the Iraq War resolutions, force the president to either veto or negotiate. We don芒鈧劉t really have any intelligence on the rider play, but keep an eye out for it on C-SPAN. That, and the unbelievably vibrant red dress Liddy Dole wears all the time. I mean, talk about showing the colors.

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