The Patriot Act survived nearly two decades with power changing hands between the parties many times. You don't need to look very hard at all to see that this former senator is not much of an exception for either party.

Sure, but I assumed that the poster was talking about the new wave of democrats just voted in in the recent election. It's possible, even likely, that they'll be as irritating and terrible as the rest of congress has been since the PATRIOT Act, just that it's not implied by this event. They haven't even been sworn in yet.