WASHINGTON, August 29, 2007 (LPAC)--Former U.S. Representative Mickey Edwards (R-OK) laid into both Republicans and Democrats in Congress today for failing to fulfill their Constitutional responsibilities, especially with regard to Congress's recent passage of the bill which gutted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and vastly expanded the Administration's powers to conduct warrantless wiretapping.

"I've been very critical of the Republicans," Edwards said, referring to the six years when they ran the Congress, "who seemed not to understand that they were both a separate and independent branch of the United States government." Edwards added that he is equally critical of Democrats "who seem not to recognize they are an equal branch of the government, and who are all too willing to be fearful of partisan consequences if they do what their oath of office requires them to do, in upholding the Constitution."

Edwards, a founder of the Heritage Foundation, and former chairman of the American Conservative Union, was speaking during a conference on the FISA law and checks and balances, at the Center for American Progress today. The point had already been made, by Caroline Frederickson of the ACLU, that even though Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi voted against the FISA bill, it could not have passed without the complicity of the Democratic leadership, since the Democrats control the agenda and what bills come to the floor for a vote.

Morton Halperin, a former National Security Council official who was himself a victim of Nixon's illegal wiretapping in the 1970s, said that the Bush Administration's purpose was to get the FISA bill passed over Democratic objections, so that Republicans could claim that "the Democrats don't care about national security." Halperin identified the Administration's attitude as reflecting the fact that "the Vice President, in particular, doesn't believe in the Constitution."

When asked what Congress should do if the White House continues to withhold information about the Bush-Cheney wiretap program, Edwards called it "absolute nonsense" for Congress to put up with the White House's refusal to disclose information. He recommended that Congress should simply say, "If we don't get the information, you don't get what you want"--be it appropriations of money, or legislation.

Both Edwards and Halperin stressed that there is no basis for the Executive to withhold information from members of Congress on grounds of secrecy or national security, since Congress is a co-equal branch of the government under the Constitution.