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It's been almost three weeks since I last wrote about the status of cosponsorship on the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007, a bill by Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) that would "…restore habeas corpus for those detained by the United States." At that point, the legislation had 23 cosponsors -- 22 Democrats and Independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont -- and I thought I would check back in today and see who has stepped up to show leadership on this issue since then.


We expect almost none of Specter's Republican colleagues to support his leadership on something so basic to our country's creed. The GOP long ago divorced itself of any commitment to our Constitution, so our standards for them have been lowered accordingly. But we expect more of Democrats and should ask why the others are not stepping up and cosponsoring this legislation along with 29 of their colleagues (including Sanders) in the Democratic caucus.

The following Democratic Senators have still not signed up to cosponsor the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007:

* Daniel Akaka (D-HI)
* Max Baucus (D-MT)
* Evan Bayh (D-IN)
* Robert Casey (D-PA)
* Kent Conrad (D-ND)
* Byron Dorgan (D-ND)
* Daniel Inouye (D-HI)
* Tim Johnson (D-SD)
* Herb Kohl (D-WI)
* Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
* Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)
* Barbara Mikulski (D-MD)
* Patty Murray (D-WA)
* Ben Nelson (D-NE)
* Mark Pryor (D-AR)
* Jack Reed (D-RI)
* Charles Schumer (D-NY)
* Jon Tester (D-MT)
* James Webb (D-VA)
* Ron Wyden (D-OR)

In fairness, Senators Mikulski and Wyden have both signed on as cosponsors to Senator Chris Dodd's Restoring the Constitution Act of 2007, which restores habeas corpus and takes it a step further by essentially gutting the entire Military Commissions Act.
http://bobgeiger.blogspot.com/2007/07/s ... l-not.html

Considering that Mark voted for the Military Commissions Act that gutted habeas corpus, it's not surprising that he's not signed on to restore it, but I thought better of Blanche - she opposed the MCA. I've emailed both of them anyway.

There's a bit of confusion about the actual bill number and I wanted to quickly clear that up today.

S. 185, which I've been writing about, and which currently has 29 cosponsors -- 28 Democrats and Independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont -- has been the operative version of the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007 since it was introduced by Specter and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) on the first day of the new Congress in January.

What people will see come to the Senate floor this week as an amendment to the Department of Defense (DoD) authorizations bill is S. Amdt. 2022, which is simply S. 185 renumbered as an amendment to the DoD legislation. In fact, the text of S. 185 and S. Amdt. 2022 are identical as follows:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-geige ... 56375.html