Just to show that I’m not reflexively opposed to everything Dianne Feinstein does, she is on the floor of the Senate right now leading the fight in getting the entire US government to follow the Army Field Manual for interrogations and intelligence gathering, which would effectively ban waterboarding and any other forms of torture from being used by the CIA.  She has worked very hard on this issue, and it looks like she’ll get passage in the Senate on this today.  That’s very significant.

After voting against stripping telecom amnesty from the bill, and seeing her amendments fail, Sen. Feinstein voted against the final bill.  Here’s her statement:

“I have decided to vote against the FISA Bill before the Senate. This is not an easy decision because I strongly believe that we need to modernize the law relating to the gathering of foreign intelligence, and I support many of the provisions in the Senate bill.

However, I believe this bill didn’t do enough to protect against the assertion of executive power. I have said on many occasions that without the additional language to strengthen and tighten the exclusivity already in FISA, I could not support final passage.

I offered an amendment on this very issue. My amendment, which would have made it clear that FISA is the excusive authority for wiretapping U.S. persons for foreign intelligence purposes, received well more than a majority of this body – 57 votes. But it did not receive the 60 votes required. Given this strong vote, I remain hopeful that similar language will be included in a FISA bill that goes to the President.

There should never be another warrantless surveillance program. And I continue to believe that there should be a strong statement in law making it crystal clear that FISA must be followed, period.

Unfortunately, the bill before the Senate did not include such language and simply didn’t go far enough in protecting against executive power. That’s why I voted against the Senate bill.”

This elides the immunity issue and foregrounds the exclusivity amendment.  But take it for what it’s worth.

There are now 54 other Congresscritters to focus on as the FISA bill head into a House-Senate conference.  The House’s RESTORE Act is actually a fairly decent, though imperfect, bill.  FDL has a petition you can sign to demand that it becomes the basis for what is sent to the President.  Call your representative and reaffirm that.

UPDATE: From the comments, seems like Feinstein pulled a Lieberman here, voting for cloture, against the final bill, and releasing a statement about the latter and not the former.  This, of course, makes me a chickensh*t.  And Art Torres a bold truth-teller.  And Dianne a patron saint.

Several months ago, at a time where Dianne Feinstein was facing censure for a series of votes siding with the Bush Administration over Democratic values or the Constitution, Art Torres assured us all, in a highly emotional speech, that he discussed telecom immunity, a forthcoming issue, with her, and that “thanks to her” immunity was stripped from the bill.

“Don’t believe me, ask my friend Senator Dodd, who will tell you that she led the effort along with him to make sure that [immunity] wasn’t in the official bill that emerged from the Senate Judiciary Committee.”

That wasn’t true then, of course; Patrick Leahy’s ju-jitsu by putting immunity in Title II of the bill and then dropping it was what did the trick.  But of course, that wasn’t enough.  The Intelligence Committee bill, the one with amnesty for the phone companies, was what made it to the floor.  Feinstein offered some amendments.  Her “exclusivity” amendment to make FISA the exclusive means under which government spying takes place “failed” because only 57 Senators voted for it; under the unanimous consent agreement, that particular amendment needed 60 votes to pass because it had too much support.  This essentially invalidates all laws passed by the Congress, since in the absence of exclusivity, what is implied is that the President has the ability to go outside whatever law is passed.

So in that environment, there was a vote to strip telecom immunity from the bill.  This is something the President alone can’t dictate to the courts.  This is the only opportunity to find the truth about how our government spied on us.  And Dianne Feinstein, hoping that we weren’t paying attention, voted against stripping it out.

It was a few months away from any pressure on her, so she felt OK with allowing the President to break American laws.  Here’s what’s happening today:

The Senate today — led by Jay Rockefeller, enabled by Harry Reid, and with the active support of at least 12 (and probably more) Democrats, in conjunction with an as-always lockstep GOP caucus — will vote to legalize warrantless spying on the telephone calls and emails of Americans, and will also provide full retroactive amnesty to lawbreaking telecoms, thus forever putting an end to any efforts to investigate and obtain a judicial ruling regarding the Bush administration’s years-long illegal spying programs aimed at Americans. The long, hard efforts by AT&T, Verizon and their all-star, bipartisan cast of lobbyists to grease the wheels of the Senate — led by former Bush 41 Attorney General William Barr and former Clinton Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick — are about to pay huge dividends, as such noble efforts invariably do with our political establishment.

Every single Senator, all of whom committed to a unanimous consent agreement that precluded any possibility to amend the bill, is responsible.  But everyone in the world knew Dianne Feinstein would sell us out and give the phone companies what they wanted for violating civil liberties.  Everyone, that is, except for Art Torres.

I’d like a personal apology, thanks.  So should everyone who was in that room in Anaheim.

[UPDATE]: In case anyone was wondering, DiFi’s “good faith” amendment fell to defeat, 41-57.  Chris Dodd rightly voted against it, because it was an idiotic compromise.

Several months ago, at a time where Dianne Feinstein was facing censure for a series of votes siding with the Bush Administration over Democratic values or the Constitution, Art Torres assured us all, in a highly emotional speech, that he discussed telecom immunity, a forthcoming issue, with her, and that “thanks to her” immunity was stripped from the bill.

“Don’t believe me, ask my friend Senator Dodd, who will tell you that she led the effort along with him to make sure that [immunity] wasn’t in the official bill that emerged from the Senate Judiciary Committee.”

That wasn’t true then, of course; Patrick Leahy’s ju-jitsu by putting immunity in Title II of the bill and then dropping it was what did the trick.  But of course, that wasn’t enough.  The Intelligence Committee bill, the one with amnesty for the phone companies, was what made it to the floor.  Feinstein offered some amendments.  Her “exclusivity” amendment to make FISA the exclusive means under which government spying takes place “failed” because only 57 Senators voted for it; under the unanimous consent agreement, that particular amendment needed 60 votes to pass because it had too much support.  This essentially invalidates all laws passed by the Congress, since in the absence of exclusivity, what is implied is that the President has the ability to go outside whatever law is passed.

So in that environment, there was a vote to strip telecom immunity from the bill.  This is something the President alone can’t dictate to the courts.  This is the only opportunity to find the truth about how our government spied on us.  And Dianne Feinstein, hoping that we weren’t paying attention, voted against stripping it out.

It was a few months away from any pressure on her, so she felt OK with allowing the President to break American laws.  Here’s what’s happening today:

The Senate today — led by Jay Rockefeller, enabled by Harry Reid, and with the active support of at least 12 (and probably more) Democrats, in conjunction with an as-always lockstep GOP caucus — will vote to legalize warrantless spying on the telephone calls and emails of Americans, and will also provide full retroactive amnesty to lawbreaking telecoms, thus forever putting an end to any efforts to investigate and obtain a judicial ruling regarding the Bush administration’s years-long illegal spying programs aimed at Americans. The long, hard efforts by AT&T, Verizon and their all-star, bipartisan cast of lobbyists to grease the wheels of the Senate — led by former Bush 41 Attorney General William Barr and former Clinton Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick — are about to pay huge dividends, as such noble efforts invariably do with our political establishment.

Every single Senator, all of whom committed to a unanimous consent agreement that precluded any possibility to amend the bill, is responsible.  But everyone in the world knew Dianne Feinstein would sell us out and give the phone companies what they wanted for violating civil liberties.  Everyone, that is, except for Art Torres.

I’d like a personal apology, thanks.  So should everyone who was in that room in Anaheim.

The Secretary of State set up a page listing uncounted ballots from last night’s election, including provisionals, vote-by-mail, and “damaged” ballots.  It’s incomplete so far, but some things jumped out:

• San Diego County has 160,000 uncounted ballots.  That could absolutely affect CA-50 (where there’s a 100-vote split for Clinton right now) and CA-53 (200-vote split) and be a potential swing of two delegates.

• Overall, 356,000 ballots are uncounted, and that doesn’t even include LA County or absentees that were postmarked on time but haven’t arrived.  Frank Russo sez there could be up to TWO MILLION ballots out.

• There’s really no way of knowing who these benefit; last-day deciders broke for Clinton in some exit polls, and the 100,000-plus provisionals may never be counted.

In the aftermath of Prop. 93’s narrow defeat (and by the way, Arnold, we do have to move on now, because, you know, the voters didn’t vote for it.  Brilliant stuff, Gov), Anthony York reports the first candidate for the new Senate leader:

Now that Proposition 93 has been rejected by voters, the races to replace the two legislative leaders are officially under way.

Sacramento Democrat Darrell Steinberg was the first to publicly announce his candidacy to replace Senate leader Don Perata Wednesday.

“It’s no secret that I’m going to run for the position and I’m going to run hard,” said Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento. “Obviously, it’s  a decision for the caucus to make and I know this, whatever happens, the election will be amicable,something that reflects the congeniality of the senate. That is the tradition. I expect it will be that way.”

Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Los Angeles, also is a contender to succeed Perata. Conversations with several senators indicate that Padilla is actively seeking votes. Steinberg has been the prohibitive front-runner for the job since his election in 2006. Padilla, a former president of the Los Angeles City Council, is said to have waiting for a formal OK from Perata to begin seeking votes.

I’m a pretty big fan of Sen. Steinberg, for his engagement with Calitics and his advocacy for the mental health victims that the Governor tried to throw out on the street last year.

Rampant speculation begins in the comments!

UPDATE by Brian: Might as well throw in all the speculation together. Over at Capitol Alert, Shane has a good run down of all the competitors for Speaker. The problem with the Assembly, is that many of the so-called candidates will be termed out in 2010. That being said, I’m not sure I could take a real position on this other than to say that I would really not be comfortable with a Speaker Calderon. Really, really not comfortable. I have a lot of respect for Asm. Fiona Ma for her work on toxics and high speed rail and it might be a good time for a female Speaker, there has never been a female Speaker as far as I can tell. But, there are a number of interesting candidates, and we’ll have to keep our eyes out to ensure we get the most progressive Speaker and Pres Pro Tem as possible.

UPDATE by Dave: From the comments and via email from Anthony York, “Dorris Allen was speaker for about three months, thanks to WIllie Brown, back in 1995 or so.”