Obama, Clinton join Dodd in filibuster threat

Dodd trails in the campaign, but he leads the front-runners on telecom immunity.

Published October 24, 2007 1:02PM (EDT)

Chris Dodd may be trailing Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in the polls, but he's leading them when it comes to standing up against retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.

When members of the Senate Intelligence Committee cut a deal with the Bush administration and approved retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that helped the government spy on their customers, Dodd said pretty immediately that he'd put a hold on the bill, then said subsequently that he'd filibuster the bill if the Senate votes to overcome his hold.

That was last week. On Tuesday, in what appears to be a response to a push from MoveOn and others, Barack Obama's campaign put out a statement saying that if the bill containing immunity for the telecom companies comes to the floor in its present form, Obama "would support a filibuster of it."

Shortly thereafter, Clinton told reporters on a conference call that while she hasn't seen the legislation yet, "as matters stand now, I could not support it and I would support a filibuster absent additional information coming forth that would convince me differently."


By Tim Grieve

Tim Grieve is a senior writer and the author of Salon's War Room blog.

MORE FROM Tim Grieve


Related Topics ------------------------------------------

2008 Elections Barack Obama Christopher Dodd D-conn. Hillary Rodham Clinton