American Civil Liberties Union

"We've come to love our fears more than we love our freedoms," Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) mused on the House floor just before that chamber voted 315-97 (with 20 members not voting) to reauthorize the USA Patriot Act without any changes for yet another year.

By now, you know the stakes — the tweaks that could have been made to guarantee that Patriot powers are used only against suspected terrorists or spies and to mandate continued reporting to ensure that we actually learn about current and future Patriot abuses. Many of these fixes were, in fact, included in prior iterations of Patriot reauthorization bills introduced in both the House and the Senate.

Reform is in the air, and immigration reform will likely follow health care reform on the Congressional to-do list. While this could be great news, it seems like we will be asked to swallow just about anything, including mandatory electronic employment verification and increased local enforcement of federal immigration law, even if it results in racial profiling, in order to get legalization of the 12-14 million undocumented people currently in the country. And, one of the scariest proposals that is being seriously discussed inside the Beltway is a biometric worker identification card (PDF).

Most people think of March 17 as a time to drink green beer and listen to bagpipes. Inside the Beltway, we think of March 17 as the day of the Irish Prime Minister's annual meeting with the President and address to Congress. But, this year, we celebrated something besides St. Patrick's Day on March 17. This past Tuesday, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) re-introduced the Responsible Education About Life (REAL) Act (S.611/HR 1551), a bill designed to create the first ever federal funding stream to provide age-appropriate, medically-accurate, comprehensive sexuality education.

Advocates who were trying to attend the REAL news conference had to run from one door of the U.S. Capitol to another because the heightened security, due to the Irish Prime Minister's visit, meant that certain passageways were closed. It took us a little longer to get there, but our difficulty accessing the event did not dampen the spirit in the room or the turn out.

Sen. Lautenberg and Rep. Lee, against a backdrop of advocates and students, addressed a standing-room-only crowd. Rep. Lee punnily emphasized the importance of "being for REAL about sex ed." A few minutes later, Sen. Lautenberg stressed the morality — yes, I said morality — of giving teens REAL facts that they can use to keep themselves healthy, make responsible decisions about whether to have sex, and protect themselves when they do choose to become sexually active.

Today we learn about: Markups vs. Hearings!

A hearing is an opportunity for members of a particular congressional committee to learn more about an issue. Sometimes, they are also seeking information about how to improve a certain piece of proposed legislation or input as they consider drafting legislation. Other times, they are conducting oversight of a government agency or exploring an issue about which they may introduce legislation in a future Congress. (Or, they might be covering their behinds when they’ve dropped an issue out of a piece of legislation and want to look like they still care about it — for example, the House Education and Labor Committee held a hearing on employment discrimination against transgender people after the House dropped gender identity and expression from its Employment Non-Discrimination Act.) Hearings usually have a number of witnesses, often from the government and non-profits, as well as private citizens with personal experiences on the issue and experts (e.g. professors or medical personnel). Each witness will present a five-minute opening statement and then answer questions from the members of Congress present. Witnesses, as well as organizations and individuals who are not scheduled to testify, can submit longer statements to be considered by the committee if they are invited to do so. The ACLU often submits statements for the record, which can be found throughout our website. Usually, witnesses will leave the hearing with homework, questions for the record that Members ask in writing and expect answers to.