Russ Feingold: “I thank the Chair. When it comes to the conference report on the USA PATRIOT Act, the die has now been cast. The Senate…”

“I thank the Chair. When it comes to the conference report on the USA PATRIOT Act, the die has now been cast. The Senate has voted to reconsider the vote against cloture from last December and now has voted to limit debate on the PATRIOT Act reauthorization bill. The rules of the Senate have changed since the days of Jimmy Stewart and ``Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.'' One Senator, no matter how strongly he or she feels, cannot singlehandedly stop a bill when 60 or more of his or her colleagues are dead set on passing it. So obviously at this point, final passage of the reauthorization bill is now assured. I am disappointed in this result, obviously, but I believe this fight has been worth making and my dedication to changing the PATRIOT Act is as strong now as it has ever been. We have made some progress since October 2001. The public understands the issues better and many of my colleagues do, too. Support for changes to the PATRIOT Act has grown over the years to the point where we actually had no objection in the Senate last year passing a pretty good bill--this was in July of 2005--a bill that made significant improvements to the PATRIOT Act. Then near the end of the year, 46 Senators actually voted to reject a conference report that took several steps backward from that bill.…”