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DETAINEES, FENCES, AND A BUSY LAME DUCK: WHAT'S COMING UP ON THE HILL

September 22, 2006 1:40 PM

ABC's Z. Byron Wolf reports: Assistant Senate Majority Leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell told reporters off-camera this morning that Republicans still have work to do "around the edges" of the detainee tribunals legislation, but the goal by the end of next week remains final passage of a detainee bill. That work around the edges includes some lesser but as-yet unresolved issues with McCain and Graham and the tough task of bringing the House Republicans in line with the deal that Senators and the White House already announced.

Speaker Dennis Hastert and House Armed Services Chairman Duncan Hunter have expressed concern that the White House may have given to much away with regard to the use of classified information. Under the McCain/Warner/Graham agreement with the White House, juries and defendants could see declassified or redacted versions of classified information needed to secure a conviction. McConnell said he is confident there will be a detainee bill passed oout of Congress next week.

McConnell has created two vehicles for passage of detainee legislation and is going through procedural motions to bring three bills to the floor next week. One option is to go just for the detainee bill and then try to squeeze the Specter/Cheney agreed NSA wiretapping bill through. The other option is to attach the two issues together.

McConnell said Congress will be back Nov. 13th after "we take a time out to hold an election."

On the Election: They'll retreat, raise taxes, and impeach Bush
In that election, he said Republicans will stand on their security record and counter Democrat attacks about the "do-nothing Congress" and the growing despair with Iraq by reminding Americans what it McConnell says it will be like with Democrats in charge.

"They will retreat in the war on terror, raise taxes, and impeach the president," McConnell said, sitting casually without a jacket, blackberry on his hip, in his Capitol Hill office. "We are going to remind voters that its not just about us (Republicans), its about them (Democrats) too."

Regardless of what happens next week on the border bill and the detainee / NSA wiretapping issues, the outcome of the election will frame what is shaping up to be an extremely busy lame duck session.

Busy Lame Duck
With all the major spending bills still unpassed, Republicans still have hopes to push tyhrough nomination of John Bolton to be Ambassador to the United Nations, the popular R&D and education tax credits unextended, and comprehensive immigration reform are still out there in the legislative ether.

McConnell, responding to a question about comprehensive Immigration reform -- which passed the Senate this Spring and was the last intra-Republican declaration that a deal with renegade party members would allow major legislation to go forward (it hasn't yet) -- said, "This Congress is not done. Immigration reform is not done."

McConnell said, this has been the "most productive Congress" he has been a part of in 22 years on the hill. He pointed to two Supreme Court nominations, the Central American Free Trade Agreement and other bills passed.

September 22, 2006 | Permalink | User Comments (1)

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Posted by: Sue Filutze | Sep 22, 2006 1:53:14 PM

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