WASHINGTON — Among the 69 senators who voted “yes” on final passage of the surveillance bill was Barack Obama of Illinois, who had opposed the immunity provision in earlier versions of the wiretapping bill, a rewrite of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee said revisions to the legislation had alleviated his concerns, but Sen. John McCain’s campaign — and many on the left — seized on the reversal as a flip-flop of the first order.
“He’s willing to change positions, break campaign commitments and undermine his own words in his quest for higher office,” said Tucker Bounds, a spokesman for the Arizona Republican.
The bill’s 28 opponents included numerous prominent Democrats, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York; Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada; Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois; and Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, a former presidential candidate now considered a leading contender to share the ticket with Obama.
Lining up with Obama were 47 Republicans and 21 mostly moderate Democrats, including Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California and Evan Bayh of Indiana.
“Sen. Obama has said before that the compromise bill is not perfect,” his campaign said in a statement. “Given the choice between voting for an improved yet imperfect bill, and losing important surveillance tools, Sen. Obama chose to support the FISA compromise.”
Obama’s GOP opponents saw a more calculated motive, aimed at sharpening the Democrat’s appeal to centrist voters in general-election battleground states. Hours before the vote, the Republican National Committee circulated an Obama statement dated Dec. 17, 2007, asserting that he “unequivocally opposes giving retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies” and would support a filibuster to stop the bill from passing.
McCain, campaigning in Pittsburgh, was absent for the vote. The Arizona senator has now missed three straight months of votes on the Senate floor, his last vote coming on an April 8 energy amendment.
