From Andy Worthington Author and Journalist
By Andy Worthington

Anyone dropping in on the US Senate from outer space would be confused to discover that, on Wednesday, an amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill, aimed at restoring habeas corpus rights to the detainees in Guantánamo – rights which were granted by the Supreme Court in 2004, but which were taken away last fall in the scandalously under-scrutinized Military Commissions Act – failed to be passed, even though a majority of senators (56 to 43) voted in favor of it.

Under the arcane rules of US Congress, two-thirds of the senators (60 in total), rather than a simple majority, were required to approve the amendment, which existed, it transpired, not in the world of common sense, but in the parallel universe of “filibusters” and “cloture” (see here for some sort of explanation). Most news outlets reported these facts without embellishment. As the New York Times described it, “Senators voted 56 to 43 to cut off debate on the proposal, 4 votes short of the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster.” The Times added, “The result put an end for now to the legislative effort to reverse a provision in a 2006 anti-terror law,” but also noted that “the matter is also before the Supreme Court.”

The clearest demonstration of well-articulated shock at the Senate’s inability to find a sufficient majority to return the most basic rights to the Guantánamo detainees came in the Nation, where Ari Melber fulminated that the Senate had failed to restore “the fundamental constitutional right of individuals to challenge government detention.” On a slightly more upbeat note, Melber also noted that the vote “suggest[ed] a new Senate majority for Habeas Corpus,” pointing out that, “Last Congress, a similar amendment did not even break 50 votes,” but adding that it was “a sad sign that we are reduced to counting votes for which members of Congress are upholding their oath to support the Constitution.”

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