Hold on!

The official Senate definition of a hold is, "An informal practice by which a Senator informs his or her floor leader that he or she does not wish a particular bill or other measure to reach the floor for consideration. The Majority Leader need not follow the Senator's wishes, but is on notice that the opposing Senator may filibuster any motion to proceed to consider the measure."

The hold has traditionally been a dark art of the Senate, something done cravenly in the cloak room. However, Chris Dodd (CT) took to the floor today to announce that he was putting a hold on the latest proposed update of the FISA bill because it grants immunity to telcomm companies that aided the Bush Administration's efforts to eavesdrop on the conversations of Americans absent a court order in the wake of September 11th. Perhaps this signals a new era of the hold, in response to new Senate law that took effect in September mandating that senators slapping holds on bills come forth into the light six days later.

Here's the deal. The majority leader can bring a bill to the floor by one of two methods. First, he can do so through a unanimous consent request. This is how hold foil most legislation. One senator frustrating unanimous consent prevents a bill from seeing the floor by refusing to allow the majority leader to call it up this way.

But, the majority leader can also make a motion that the Senate move to consideration of a particular bill. All this motion needs to succeed is a simple majority vote (51 yeas). However, the motion itself is up for debate and therefore can be subjected to a cloture vote. This means that 60 senators must vote for a motion to proceed on the bill before it even reaches the Senate floor.

Are there 60 votes in favor of the FISA bill that grants retroactive immunity for telecoms that breached their clients' Fourth Amendment rights? Maybe we'll find out!

I have read that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (NV) plans to use every procedural tactic in the book to evade Dodd's hold on the bill. If he calls for a motion to proceed to the bill in mid-November, we will know that he is taking this unorthodox approach to bringing this bill to the floor.