I’ve been pretty disconnected from politics since Joe Biden became the last remaining Democratic Presidential nominee, the coronavirus shutdown began, and now the eruptions of nationwide protests over racist cops killing black people, but there is one piece of political news from the recent past unrelated to those events that I thought was important enough to circle back to and write about:
Congress had an opportunity to vote on an amendment that would dismantle a component of the PATRIOT Act that allowed the government to collect American citizens’ Internet browsing histories without a warrant. Unfortunately, the vote required 60 yeas to pass, but only managed to collect 59. Among the four senators that did not participate in the vote, Bernie Sanders was one of them. Only one more vote was needed. Bernie could have singlehandedly provided the win and he wasn’t there to deliver it. He doesn’t even have the excuse that he was on the campaign trail because he had already dropped out nearly a month prior.
It’s been almost three weeks since the vote and as far as I can tell, Bernie has not issued a statement to justify why he wasn’t present. Just looked through his Twitter feed and nada.
Shame on Bernie for not voting on this consequential amendment to restore some of our Fourth Amendment rights. And shame on the 10 Democratic senators that voted against it, and the 1 Democratic senator that opted out along with Bernie. This is extremely disappointing.