The handshakes have been made, the contribution checks have been written, and the telecom industry and corporate shill Democrats have joined forces to immunize lawbreaking and undermine the rule of law.  This time, for real.

A final deal has been reached on a rewrite of electronic surveillance rules and will be announced Thursday, two congressional aides said.

The aides said the House is likely to take up the legislation Friday….

As of Wednesday, sources said the new bill would allow a federal district court to decide whether to provide retroactive legal immunity to telecommunications companies being sued for their role in the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance program….One source said the federal district court deciding on retroactive immunity would review whether there was “substantial evidence” the companies had received assurances from the government that the administration’s program was legal.

Absolutely absurd.  Not only does this bill still allow for mass surveillance on American citizens, but according to its provisions, if the Attorney General wrote a “get out of the Constitution free” note to its telecom partners, which we alrady know they did, then they are allowed to violate federal statutes.  The telecoms don’t have any lawyers who can provide their own analysis, apparently.  I guess all the money goes into lobbying.  This is total amnesty without any way of discovering who broke the law and when.  The entire point of telecom immunity was to shut down any investigations into spying on Americans.  Democrats are cupable for having not spoken up to stop this when they had the chance and the Hoyer-Rockefeller axis wants to just bury the bodies.

This will come up for a vote as soon as TOMORROW in the House, despite being just released today.  Your representative needs a call.  Joe Baca is a Blue Dog who supported the good FISA bill, the one without amnesty.  He in particular needs some attention.

Rep. Joe Baca, D-Calif. — Phone: (202) 225-6161, Fax: (202) 225-8671

When this reaches the Senate, it will be another accountability moment for Dianne Feinstein.  She has tried to duck this debate repeatedly, but she can tell us by her vote where she stands – with corporate execs and lobbyists, or with the rule of law and the right to privacy.

When I first came across this story on Republican Rep. John Campbell’s blog, I was puzzled. (emphasis added)

Last night, Republicans walked off the House Floor after Democrats changed the outcome of a vote after  the final tally had been called. And this was not just any vote. The vote would have barred illegal immigrants from receiving food stamps and subsidized housing. Republicans had just enough votes to pass the motion, and we won the final vote 215-213.

That should have been the end of it. But not under the Pelosi Congress.

After the gavel had fallen, Stockton, California Freshman Democrat Jerry McNerney (CA-11) changed his vote to oppose the motion, and even though the vote was closed, they allowed the outcome to go the other way.

Say what? More on the flip…

Curious to find out more about this rather extraordinary allegation, I did a little searching and came up with a Congressional Quarterly article that gave this description of the events: (emphasis added)

Late Thursday, the Republicans moved from unhappy to irate when a Democratic presiding officer ruled that their motion to shelve the agriculture bill had been defeated, even though as the gavel fell the electronic scoreboard in the chamber blinked a tally of 215 votes for the motion and 213 against it.

House Republicans declared that unless Democrats honored the 215-213 outcome, the GOP would block action on all but two bills – a modification (HR 3356) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (PL 95-511) and a bill (HR 3311) authorizing up to $250 million to rebuild the collapsed Minneapolis highway bridge.

The GOP motion that touched off the furor would in effect have amended the spending bill (HR 3161) to bar use of funds to employ or provide housing for illegal immigrants. Instead, Democrats plowed ahead, eventually passing the bill by 237-18 on a roll call boycotted by most Republicans. […]

The floor confusion arose when, with the tally tied at 214-214, two politically vulnerable Democrats, Nick Lampson of Texas and Harry E. Mitchell of Arizona, went to the well of the chamber to switch their votes to “no.” The buddy system would prevent Democrats who voted “no” from being targeted as the deciding vote in future campaign ads. Moments later, three Cuban-American Republicans from south Florida, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Mario Diaz-Balart, moved to change their votes to “aye.”

The five vote switches were called out by the House reading clerk. The two Democratic changes put the tally at 212-216. Ros-Lehtinen’s switch made it 213-215. Lincoln Diaz-Balart evened it at 214-214, but a tie vote fails. As the reading clerk called out Mario Diaz-Balart’s new vote, the Speaker Pro Tempore, Rep. Michael R. McNulty, D-N.Y., banged the gavel, apparently unaware that the second Diaz-Balart’s vote had yet to be counted.

McNulty had his eyes on the electronic scoreboard, which still read 214-214. But almost as soon as the gavel came down, the scoreboard registered Mario Diaz-Balart’s vote, pushing the tally to 215-213. The scoreboard showed those numbers and the word “FINAL.”

Within a minute or so, a flurry of post-gavel vote switches by Reps. Zack Space of Ohio, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Jerry McNerney of California – resulted in an official outcome of 212-216. […]

“Shame! Shame!” Republicans chanted across the aisle.

You can watch it for yourself.

Now, I certainly have my own ideas about what transpired with this vote (note that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer seemed to be running the show for the Democrats and note, also, that it was five “politically vulnerable” freshman Democrats who won in Republican-leaning districts in 2006 who switched their votes at the last minute). Frankly, I don’t like the conclusion that I’ve reached. If anyone reading this has a more charitable interpretation of these events, I’d certainly be interested in hearing all about it.

Cross posted at The Progressive Connection

With all the heat, Ellen Tauscher’s press secretary Kevin Lawlor when on record and said, “her 63 New Dem colleagues were in lock-step with Speaker Pelosi and the Democratic Leadership throughout the first 100 hours”. The problem is, this isn’t true. For example the 6 for ’06 agenda for the first 100 hours had the item to end subsidies for big oil and invest in renewable energy. Congressman John Barrow voted against leadership and according to Tauscher’s own website he is one of those 63 NDC colleagues. Is anyone suprised a NDC member sided with big oil? Is anyone suprised Kevin Lawlor tried to cover it up with what appears to be a blatant lie to the press?

UPDATE: Josh Richman has another find:

And, from my own research, I now see that New Democrat Mike McIntyre, D-N.C., was among 16 Democrats opposing H.R. 3, the bill to expand stem-cell research.

Flack Checked.

UPDATE II: The A.P. is now running the exact same quote.

UPDATE III: To put this in context, 1/3 of the Democratic Party 100 hour agenda passed despite the fact NDC members weren’t in lockstep with the leadership.