Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

One meme getting some play this week is the idea that the military vote may be up for grabs. The best exposition of this I've seen is Benjamin Wallace-Wells's article in the Washington Monthly, Corps Voters, which is well worth a read.

Dramatic confirmation of this hypothesis appears to be found in this Army Times Presidential Poll. When I visited it, the numbers were:

Bush 31%
Clark 22%
Kucinich 16% [Shurley shome mishtake -ed.]
Dean 12%
Edwards 10%
Kerry 4%
Braun 2%
Sharpton 1%
Lieberman < 1%
Gephardt < 1%

If that were right it would mean that almost 70% would choose a Democrat over Bush. And that doesn't mean the conservative Lieberman, either.

But wait! This is not a scientific poll at all. By all appearances, it's just a tally of responses from one of those horrible unscientific 'polls' on the Army Times homepage. From that page there's no way to tell whether the 'poll' is limited to people from, say, .mil addresses, or whether we all get to vote. Nor is it clear how or whether the web site has anything in place to block repeat voting.

In other words, it's totally meaningless without some evidence that the voters are only servicepeople, and that they only get to vote once each. And even then, since the results are based on a self-selected sample, they would only be suggestive at best.

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Since it looks as if there may be an impasse on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's access to White House documents, and the UK's Daily Telegraph is reporting that Senator Richard Durbin is threatening to invoke a committee rule allowing the Democrats to run a parallel inquiry, I thought I'd try to figure out whether this is possible under the Committee's Rules of Procedure.

Amazingly, the answer is more or less, 'Yes, this is possible.' Technically, though, it's not a parallel process — just a committee activity organized by interested Senators. Any five members can call a committee meeting even if the Chair doesn't want them to (Rule 1.5). There are eight Democrats on the committee — including John Edwards (hey, any reporters reading this? Can you ask Edwards whether he'd support Sen. Durban in an effort to hold an independent inquiry? Or do I have to wait until Edwards guests at Lessig's blog?) And, it only takes five members to initiate an investigation, which gets the staff up and running on the problem. (Rule 6).

More importantly, the Vice Chair — that's Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) — has the power to issue a subpoena. (Rule 7)

The Committe does have the power, however, to amend its own rules. (Rule 14) Although it's split 8-8 between Democrats and Republicans, the Chair is a Republican, and I presume he'd have the tie-breaking vote. So if the Democrats really got going on this, the Republicans could stop it — if they could maintain party unity. (Senator Olympia Snowe is one of the committee Republicans.)

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Yesterday I wrote up an item asking whether there was a connection between Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee saying they might run their own 9/11 inquiry (with, apparently subpoena power under an obscure Intel committee rule), and an AP report of the White House's sudden willingness to turn over documents to the committee.

As the story about the Democrats came from a British paper, I noted there was a greater than average chance it might be wrong. British papers don't always get the details right in US political stories, and are anyway less obsessive about details than US papers. Now, however, it seems as if maybe it was the AP story that is missing part of the picture. Or rather, that the White House had a change of heart (or can't get its story straight, or has hung a Senator out to dry — either of which is the sign of a sinking ship…).

Today's AP story, by William C. Mann, says, Senator, U.S. Disagree on Iraq Inquiry says,

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee expects the White House to give the panel access to all materials it sought for its inquiry into prewar information on Iraq. A spokesman for President Bush indicates he shouldn't be so sure.

Both Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and White House spokesman Trent Duffy spoke Sunday of “a spirit of cooperation” regarding the documents. That's where agreement seemed to end.

Roberts said White House aides told committee staff members late Friday of acquiescence, on behalf of the National Security Council, to the committee's demands. The Pentagon also said it would cooperate, Roberts said on CNN's “Late Edition.”

The committee had set a deadline of noon last Friday.

While agreeing on a new spirit in relations with the committee, Duffy, with Bush in Crawford, Texas, said he could offer no concrete promises and refused to confirm Roberts' assertion of agreement on a turnover.

“We've had productive conversations about ways we can work with and assist the committee,” Duffy said. “While the committee's jurisdiction does not cover the White House, we want to be helpful and we will continue to talk to and work with the committee in a spirit of cooperation.”

…

Looks like this one will run for a while.