would liberals have passed the Patriot Act?

[sweetjazz]

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Something similar would have passed for the following reasons:

1. We would have still had a Republican Congress
2. The whole county was in "Do something" mode.
3. My understanding of how the PATRIOT act came into being is that the Justice Department went to Congress with a wish list and Congress largely passed it. Its likely that Civil Servants in the DOJ had a lot of input in that bill, and Civil Servants stay on between administrations.

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I think this is exactly right, except for point 1. The act passed 357-66 in the House and 98-1 in the Senate. OF COURSE a Democratic administration, with or without a Democratic Congress, would have passed the bill. Anyone who says different is distorting the facts or has a bad memory.

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OF COURSE any bill dealing with national security would have been written very differently had Democrats been in power. For better or worse.

The online gambling bill passed overwhelmingly in the House and a majority of Democrats voted for it. I think it is pretty absurd to suggest that the bill would have passed -- or even saw the light of day -- had Democrats controlled the House.