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A controversial bill on the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program that won approval yesterday in the U.S. Senate split the votes of Iowa Sens. Tom Harkin and Chuck Grassley.

The bill overhauls rules on secret government eavesdropping and shields phone companies from lawsuits for their role in the program.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Leonard Boswell, who represents Iowa’s Third Congressional District and who last week voted to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA), received $10,000 in campaign contributions from the nation’s largest telecommunications companies this year.

His primary challenge safely over, Democrat Leonard Boswell voted with most House Republicans in favor of passage on the FISA bill that includes full immunity for telecommunications companies.

Iowa’s other two Democrats, Bruce Braley and Dave Loebsack, voted against the bill but were on the short side of the 293-129 roll call. (Loebsack was back in [...]

Leonard Boswell prominently displays a “Blue Dog Conservative Democrat” logo on his House Web page. And this week, his Blue Dog partners control the fate of federal legislation granting telecommunications companies retroactive immunity for cooperating with the government in warrantless surveillance.

Boswell and other self-described Blue Dogs are bucking Democratic leadership and joining with House Republicans [...]

Update: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has agreed to withdraw the bill from the floor until the senate reconvenes in January. Dodd spent approximately eight hours on the floor for his filibuster. “Today we have scored a victory for American civil liberties and sent a message to President Bush that we will not [...]