Stabenow Responds to Question on Military Commissions Act

"Thank you for contacting me about the Military Commissions Act of 2006. I understand your deeply held beliefs regarding this bill and your distrust of the Bush Administration which I share.

As you may know, the Supreme Court's Hamdan v. Rumsfeld decision found the President's military tribunals unconstitutional. This decision created a void with no judicial process in place for the detainees who our country has been holding indefinitely.

I understand the distrust of the Bush Administration which has frankly shown a flagrant disregard for the law. However, having no law in place would have given this administration continued justification to act without any accountability.

This proposal puts in place protections that do not exist today for detainees and is a better system than the one proposed by the President. I strongly opposed the President's attempts to undermine the Geneva Convention. This bill does not amend the Geneva Convention in any way. This proposal puts in place specific protections against torture, providing needed clarification on what constitutes war crimes and criminalizing specific interrogation techniques.

Could this bill be improved? Absolutely. I supported every Democratic amendment to tighten definitions and strengthen this legislation. Unfortunately, we lost them in close votes. I will continue to work with my colleagues to modify the law, and am hopeful that with changes in the new Congress, we will be successful in making these needed improvements.

There is no question that Congress will need to continue its oversight role of this Administration. While we may respectfully disagree about this bill, my vote was based on the sincere belief that ignoring the Hamdan decision and passing no legislation was not an option. If we had not passed this bill, our military would not have been able to move forward with trials against suspected terrorists now in U.S. custody.

Thanks for sharing your views with me on this legislation. As always, I welcome your input.

Sincerely,

Debbie Stabenow
United States Senator

DS:gt"

Thank you for posting this, Jordan. It does help...kind of. She is absolutely correct when she says that we don't trust the current administration; after all, they haven't given us anything on which to base any trust. And besides, the alternative to voting for Stabenow is not any kind of alternative. So Debbie, you still get my vote.

:hi:

I will vote straight dem, as I always do, because I am voting for the party. I did reply to her that she may have had her reasons, however I still question jeopardizing habeas corpus and giving this pres. the ability to decide and declare who will be considered enemy combatants. I think she did it to try to appeal to the flag wavers and the people on the west side of the state. I'm not buying this reasoning, but what politician have I ever agreed with totally. I think she does most things right.