The San Francisco Chronicle has reported that California Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein will support retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies. This puts the official tally at two votes in favor and four votes opposed to telecom amnesty. We still need to convince six more Senators on the Judiciary Committee to oppose retroactive immunity to ensure that it is killed in Committee and doesn't reach the floor of the Senate.

This means one of the “nay” votes has to come from a Republican member of Committee, which does not seem incredibly likely. The Republican who we'd previously targeted as most likely to vote the right was was Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. Since Specter has also introduced a proposal that would indemnify the telecom companies by making the federal government sole defendant in all of the pending cases against the industry. This proposal – retroactive immunity by another name – makes it look unlikely that Specter will oppose other forms of immunity.

There are two paths from here:

First, we must continue to call all members of the Senate Judiciary who aren't currently opposed and ask them to oppose retroactive immunity. Everyone is not opposed needs to hear from the public on this issue – even conservative Republicans – because the Constitution and rule of law are not partisan issues, nor should they be.

Second, if you're feeling discouraged by the increased chances of amnesty for telecoms making it out of the Judiciary Committee, remember that Senator Dodd has vowed to stop any such legislation from becoming law, either through a hold or by filibuster if necessary. Dodd will stand up for the rule of law. He will defend the Constitution.

Now is the time to take action, though. Chris Dodd won't wait until 2009 to lead and we shouldn't wait until 2009 to stand up for what we believe in.

Call the Senate Judiciary Committee – we'll do the dialing for you through our Citizen Generated Whip Count calling tool: http://chrisdodd.com/immunity