Jeff Bingaman United States Senator from New Mexico

Bingaman speaks in favor of an amendment that would have restored the writ of habeas corpus. The amendment was ultimately defeated.

Below is the full transcript of Bingaman's statement on the floor:

Mr. President, I rise today to speak in support of the amendment being offered by Senators Leahy and Specter to restore the Writ of Habeas Corpus. I am proud to be a cosponsor of this legislation, and it is my hope that it will be adopted.

In my opinion one of the most troubling aspects of the Administration’s onslaught on basic civil rights, which has largely been carried out with the acquiescence of Congress, is with regard to the suspension of habeas corpus.

The “Great Writ,” as it is known in Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence, is simply the basic right to challenge the legality of one’s confinement by the government. It is based on a core American value that it is unacceptable to give the Executive Branch unchecked authority to detain whomever it wants without an independent review of the legality of the government’s actions. The right dates back to the Magna Carta, and our Founding Fathers included it as one of the fundamental rights guaranteed by our Constitution.

Mr. President, I would like to take a moment to briefly recount how we ended up where we are today.

In 2004, in the case Rasul v. Bush, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that individuals held at the Guantanamo Bay naval base have the right to challenge the legality of their detention by filing a habeas petition in a U.S. Federal court.

In November 2005, in response to the Supreme Court’s decision, and at the behest of the Bush Administration, Senator Graham offered an amendment to the 2006 Defense Authorization bill that sought to overrule the Rasul decision and strip Federal courts of jurisdiction to hear habeas claims filed by Guantanamo prisoners.

I offered an alternative amendment aimed at preserving the right to habeas corpus. My amendment was voted on the day before the Senate recessed for Veterans Day. No hearings had been held in either the Senate Judiciary Committee or the Armed Services Committee regarding the impact of eliminating this long-standing right. After very little debate on the Senate floor, my amendment was defeated by a vote of 49 to 42. The next week I offered a second amendment also aimed at preserving habeas rights, but it was also defeated after a deal was reached as part of what is known as the Graham-Levin compromise.

Under the Graham-Levin compromise, which was ultimately included in the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, habeas rights were curtailed but the D.C. Circuit was granted very limited jurisdiction to review the determination of a Combatant Status Review Tribunal. In 2006, the Supreme Court ruled in the Hamdan case that it was unclear as to whether Congress intended to prospectively repeal habeas rights and that the military commissions in Guantanamo were improperly constituted in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Once again, the Senate had the opportunity to restore our Nation’s commitment to the rule of law. Unfortunately, rather than standing up for the rights enshrined in our Constitution, the Senate passed by a vote of 65 to 34 the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which explicitly eliminated habeas rights.

Today is almost exactly a year after the Senate voted to pass the Military Commissions Act, and the Senate once again has the opportunity do what is right. We have the chance to restore one of the most fundamental rights guaranteed by our Constitution, and I hope the Senate will take this important step in restoring our Nation’s commitment to the rule of law.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.