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Detail for 2006 Senate Roll Call Vote 259

Vote Date
28-Sep-2006
Yeas : Nays
65 : 34

Our Congress Position Report shows how every member voted during this vote.

Information about the vote from special interest groups and other information providers in our Report Cards:

Friends Committee on National Legislation

S. 3930 As Amended; Military Commissions Act of 2006.

A bill to authorize trial by military commission for violations of the law of war. This legislation authorizes the president to order torture and abusive, humiliating treatment; permits indefinite detention of human beings without safeguards recognized as essential by U.S. law and treaty obligations; and transfers significant congressional power to the president.

American Civil Liberties Union

Military Commissions Act.

The Senate voted to approve the Military Commission Act of 2006. This group opposed the bill because it gutted the enforceability of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, retroactively stripped federal courts of authority to consider habeas corpus petitions and other legal actions by foreign detainees, provided retroactive immunity to civilians who authorized or ordered illegal acts of torture and abuse, and set up military commissions that can order executions of defendants based on evidence that the defendant cannot see and that was obtained only as the result of horrific abuse.

American Conservative Union

S. 3930 As Amended; Military Commissions Act of 2006.

Senate passed S. 3930, to authorize trial by military commission for violations of the law of war, after taking action on the following amendments proposed thereto.

United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers

Military Tribunals (S. 3930).

President Bush has repeatedly used the 9/11 tragedy and the Iraq war as excuses to erode the Bill of Rights and escape from past U.S. commitments to international human rights, as well as legal standards of due process. The Senate passed legislation (HR6166) to permit the U.S. military to use various forms of torture, to allow the government to withhold evidence at military trials of alleged terror suspects, to hold prisoners forever without trial, and to exempt from prosecution any war crimes committed before December 30, 2005.

The John Birch Society

Military Tribunals.

This legislation (S. 3930) to establish a special system of military tribunals for “unlawful enemy combatants” is identical to the bill passed by the House the previous day (see House Roll Call #491 for more details).  This bill would curtail defendant rights.

Citizens for Global Solutions

S. 3930 Military Commissions Act of 2006 / Treatment of Detainees.

The Military Commissions Act of 2006 amended the Uniform Code of Military Justice to codify and define procedures governing the use and establishment of commissions to try enemy combatants and removed habeas corpus rights from detainees classified as enemy combatants. The Act circumvented the Supreme Court’s decision in Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld which ruled that the military commissions established by the administration to try detainees violated the Geneva Conventions and military law.

Arab American Institute

S.3930 - Military Commissions Authorization passage.

Before heading for recess, Congress voted on this long overdue bill to authorize military commissions for detainees in U.S. custody. Changes made just days before the vote removed the phrase “outside of the United States” from the section regarding habeas corpus—the means by which an individual can challenge their detention in a court of law. Although likely to be ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, this new law would allow the federal government to indefinitely detain individuals—including green-card holders, students and other legal visitors—without allowing them to challenge their detention in court.
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