In the last couple days I’ve been able to highlight some very good examples of Democratic candidates for Congress that make me optimistic about the ability of incoming candidates to hinge onto important progressive legislative fights now. Jim Himes and Donna Edwards have set the stage for not only what is good to hear from candidates, but also what Democrats currently in office should be saying.

Given that we’re talking about Democrats, though, it’s not shocking that we now have an example of a Democratic candidate being wrong on the issue and wrong on the message: Kay Hagan, who’s running for the North Carolina Senate nomination. Via Pam Spaulding, Kosh of BlueNC reports on Hagan’s stance on retroactive immunity:

She was asked if she would have voted for, or against, the FISA bill this week which would have granted retroactive immunity to Telcos for felony violations of the current FISA law.

Ms. Hagan explained that she was against Telcos spying on Americans, but that she would have voted FOR the bill, and granted them immunity, but that future law breaking would not be tolerated.

I don’t have text or word for word quotes of what Hagan said and Kosh doesn’t provide them, so I can’t delve too deeply into how problematic her statements are. Kosh goes on to break down why this statement is so flawed, though I’m sure it should be obvious to anyone who’s a regular reader of this blog. There’s nothing that justifies changing the law retroactively to give telecommunications companies a Get Out of Jail Free card. They knew the law and they broke it – and worse, they helped the Bush administration break the law in an area that there is simply no evidence it needed breaking.

I’m not going to speculate on why Hagan is so wrong on this. Hopefully it was a product of not knowing enough about the FISA fight, which is entirely likely for a challenger candidate who’s never served in national office. But it may also be a reflection of Hagan’s politics. For what it’s worth, Kosh reports this on Hagan’s opponent: “For the record, Jim Neal was completely opposed to immunity and would have voted NO on the bill.”