Jane Harman: “instead of passing one strong bill to make our country safer, the House bill has two divergent parts: the first part is…”

“instead of passing one strong bill to make our country safer, the House bill has two divergent parts: the first part is the core bill, which includes a watered-down version of the intelligence reform provisions in the 9/11 Commission report. The second part is a campaign bill, which has some useful features, but also contains partisan controversial provisions, such as expanded deportation, unlimited detention, unnecessary environmental waivers, and unchecked databases designed to paint Democrats as weak on terrorism in the weeks before an election. Several of these egregious provisions were eliminated on the House floor, but the re-vote on the Smith amendment persuaded me that the bill's sponsors were not seeking common ground, but were making 30-second attack ads. I voted in committee to report the bill in order to move the process forward, and I will work my heart out in conference to strengthen the intelligence reform provisions and conform the other provisions to what the 9/11 Commission recommended.”