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Voters Seek Stronger Role for Congress in Checking President's Actions, Poll Shows (10/10/2006)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: media@aclu.orgConnecticut, New Mexico, Ohio and Pennsylvania Voters Want
Protection
from Terrorism But Not at the Expense of Civil
Liberties
NEW
YORK- Voters in four key states want to see Congress take a stronger role in
providing checks and balances to the President's actions in fighting terrorism,
and voice a strong preference for House and Senate candidates who will oppose
the President's policies on the treatment of Guantánamo detainees, the use of
torture and extraordinary rendition of detainees as well as secret searches of
the private records of Americans.
Those are the findings in recent
surveys of 600 registered voters in each of four states that will play a strong
role in the makeup of the next Congress: Connecticut, New Mexico, Ohio and
Pennsylvania.
"This poll shows that voters care deeply about
protecting our civil liberties and Constitution, which have been under
unprecedented attack by the Bush Administration," said ACLU Executive Director
Anthony D. Romero. "Voters in four of the most hotly contested battleground
states have made it clear that preserving freedoms and the checks and balances
of our democracy are critically important to them. For voters, protecting the
civil liberties of Americans and upholding our Constitution are key issues in
November's elections, and these lessons apply to both Republicans and
Democrats."
"House and Senate candidates should know that while
voters want protection from terrorism they don't want it at the expense of their
Constitutional rights," he said. "We can be both safe and free. Those candidates
who ignore civil liberties do so at their peril."
In this time of
an unpopular war and concerns about terrorism, education, the economy and health
care, the survey reports that voters overwhelmingly view the country as on the
wrong track (about six in ten voters) versus going in the right direction (about
three of ten voters), and they also voice strong support for the protection of
their civil liberties.
Six to seven in ten voters in the four
states reject President Bush's claim that he should be able to take whatever
actions are necessary to protect America from terrorists without the checks and
balances of Congress and the judiciary, while only about a third believe the
President should have the power to take whatever actions he believes are
necessary to protect the country from terrorism. The preference for checks on
the President is higher in the four states than it was earlier this year when
the same polling firm that conducted this survey asked a national sample in
February to choose between two sides of the debate on Presidential powers. In
that February survey a majority of voters (60 percent) said the President should
not act on his own in deciding how to fight terrorism without the checks and
balances of the courts or Congress. The percentages in the four states in this
survey are higher: 64 percent in Connecticut; 66 percent in New Mexico; 69
percent in Ohio; and 72 percent in Pennsylvania.
Looking to the
November elections, the voters in the four states strongly express a preference
for candidates who oppose policies the President has sought in the name of
fighting terrorism. For example:
- Extraordinary rendition: Seven in
ten would vote for a candidate who opposes "allowing government agents to
capture people in foreign countries and secretly fly them to other countries,
and then torture them to gather information about terrorism," over a candidate
who supports it;
- Torture: More than two-thirds would vote for a
candidate who opposes "the government torturing prisoners to gather information
about terrorism," over a candidate who supports it;
- Military
tribunals: Six in ten would vote for a candidate who opposes "putting detainees
at Guantánamo military base on trial in military tribunals at which the suspects
are NOT allowed to see all of the evidence against them and the government could
use hearsay evidence obtained during the interrogation of other terrorist
suspects" over a candidate who supports this; and
- Holding detainees without
charges: Six in ten would vote for a candidate who opposes "the government
holding detainees at Guantánamo military base as it has for the past five years
without charging them with a crime or without access to a lawyer," over a
candidate who supports this.
And, voters in each of the four states are also more likely to support the
candidate who "says the President is wrong when he violates our laws and civil
liberties in the name of fighting terrorism and we can protect America and at
the same time uphold the Constitution" than the candidate who "strongly supports
the actions the President has taken in the name of fighting terrorism and says
we should be willing to give up some civil liberties to keep Americans
safe." The breakout of voter support for the candidate who opposes the
President versus voter support for the candidate who supports the President:
Connecticut (49 percent vs. 35 percent); New Mexico (56 percent vs. 31 percent);
Ohio (52 percent vs. 33 percent); and Pennsylvania (58 percent vs. 30
percent).
The ACLU is a non-partisan organization that does not
support or oppose candidates for elective office. The organization works
with both Republicans and Democrats in advocating protections for civil
liberties. Recently, the ACLU hired two Republican former members of Congress to
assist with its lobbying efforts - Bob Barr of Georgia and J.C. Watts of
Oklahoma.
The random sample telephone interview survey was
conducted for the ACLU by the Washington, D.C.-based polling firm of Belden
Russonello & Stewart Sept. 13-25, 2006, and has a sampling error of plus or
minus 4 percent.
Results from the poll are available at www.aclu.org/poll. Web users can answer all
the poll questions for themselves online at this site. The web survey also
lets visitors compare their answers to the official poll, and to other
respondents in their state.
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