Senate Democrats swapped a civil libertarian for a national security hawk as head of the party’s Judiciary Committee contingent, amid a post-election leadership shuffle.
Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) will become the ranking Democrat of the Senate Appropriations Committee in the 115th Congress–a void left by the retiring Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.). The panel has significant influence over how federal taxpayer money is spent.
“My ongoing efforts range from economic development in Vermont and rebuilding our country’s infrastructure, to protecting Lake Champlain, fighting efforts to roll back protections of our air, water, and public lands, and pressing forward with action on climate change,” he said Wednesday, in a statement.
Leahy’s decision means that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) will now lead Democrats on the Judiciary Committee. The body will become more important for the party, amid the Donald Trump era, with judicial nominations and criminal justice policy going through the panel.Trump has promised authoritarian “law and order” criminal justice policies.
Feinstein has sided with law enforcement and the security state on a number of key issues. She has been a vociferous critic of Edward Snowden, and a staunch defender of NSA mass surveillance.
As the current chair of the Intel Committee, Feinstein has also pushed legislation that would allow law enforcement to undermine encrypted data–a move that would cause widespread vulnerability online, technologists warn.
Feinstein also, earlier this year, supported an effort led by Senate Judiciary Republicans to undermine an amendment to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986. The bill, which had passed the House 419-0, sought to close a loophole in federal law that allowed US officials to access emails stored on a third-party server for over six months.
Leahy had supported the effort. He had also been a critic of the NSA, and a leading advocate of the modest reforms enacted last year to rein in federal telephony metadata collection through non-adversarial intelligence courts–legislation that wouldn’t have been possible without Snowden. Leahy has also been a critic of efforts to undermine encryption.
Feinstein’s marks on civil liberties aren’t all overwhelming negative. She did spearhead the investigative effort to shed light on the torture program carried out by the administration of George W. Bush, in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2011 terror attacks. The so-called “Torture Report” was released in late 2014.
Feinstein’s departure as chair from the Intel Committee also means the secretive panel will be chaired by a stronger supporter of encryption, in Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.). Warner, however, has also been criticized by privacy advocates for entertaining the idea that cryptology can safely be undermined–through the formation of a special bipartisan commission, to study the issue.
Civil libertarians would have almost certainly preferred to see Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) as the ranking Dem of the Intelligence Committee. A longtime critic of post-9/11 surveillance powers, Wyden will remain chair of the Senate Finance Committee–a body that sets fiscal and trade policy (arenas in which Wyden is far more conservative).
Senate committee chair and vice chairmanships are allocated, first, based on seniority, according to convention.
