House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) has postponed a vote to amend the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act for at least a week, and a Hoyer aide told The Hill there was no indication the bill would go back to the floor “anytime soon…” Hoyer’s spokeswoman also denied that House Democratic leaders were waiting on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will start its markup of the bill’s Senate version Wednesday. The Senate Intelligence panel has passed a FISA rewrite that includes limited retroactive immunity for telecommunications firms that cooperated with the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program. Many Democrats oppose that provision, which is not in the House bill, and some on the Senate Judiciary panel may try to change or strip that language… “Nothing’s new. Democratic leadership is still in limbo,” said Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.). “The best thing to do is to have a solid bill, not the bill the Democrats cobbled together. That was a mess.” When asked whether she had heard that Democratic leaders were having trouble with gathering the votes on the measure, especially from conservative freshmen and Blue Dog Democrats, Wilson said, “That would make sense.”
Wilson is quite right. Whether out of conviction or political survival instincts, the Blue Dogs have been reluctant to vote for the leadership bill, which would afford terrorists significantly more protections than they have under current law. The Democratic leadership seems frustrated that they cannot find a way to force them to support such a measure–for now, at least. For an excellent assessment of just how irresponsible the Democratic leadership position is, check out this piece from Gary Schmitt in this week’s issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD:
In a perfect (or just more reasonable) world, the House and Senate Intelligence committees would start over. Constantly trying to amend FISA presumes that FISA’s underlying structure (with its secret court of review) and its standard for issuing warrants (“probable cause”) are worth preserving. We might remember our own system of separation of powers while picking up a thing or two from our European allies. Searches, electronic or otherwise, should be “reasonably” connected to the government’s legitimate function of protecting us from terrorist attacks…
Read the whole thing. The last part of the piece from the Hill drips with irony, by the way. We covered here the problems that Democrats created for themselves when they shut Republicans out of the process completely. Not having learned from the experience, it seems Democrats may try it again:
Democrats were mum about which tactics they may use to curtail other possible motions by Republicans, who vehemently opposed the bill’s closed rule. But when asked whether the Rules Committee may tweak the rule to limit Republican input on the floor, panel member Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) smiled and said: “We are aware of the options.”
Rather than hinting at another attempt to ram this through with no amendments, Hastings may be referring to an another attempt on the part of House Democrats to change the rules of the House completely to deny minority rights.
