With just days left until summer adjournment, Senate Democrats on Tuesday rejected a deal to finish a cybersecurity bill by the end of the week and are instead demanding a guarantee that they’ll get a chance to vote on a series of amendments to the legislation.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid announced that he will not accept a proposal offered by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to allow Democrats to offer 10 amendments but with no guarantee that they will ever receive a vote.
“I can’t imagine how he can make this offer with a straight face,” Reid said on the Senate floor, shortly after McConnell made the offer.
Reid said Democrats want an assurance from McConnell that the Senate would vote on an unspecified number of their amendments that would be considered relevant, though not necessarily germane, to the bill.
If McConnell refuses, Reid said, Democrats will not agree to shorten a mandatory waiting period to begin considering the legislation. That means the Senate will not be able to complete the legislation by the end of the week, when senators leave town for a five-week recess.
“Republican leaders can look forward to this being the first thing he takes up in September,” Reid warned, noting a crammed fall agenda that includes unfinished spending legislation.
McConnell was indeed serious when he made the offer, but said despite Reid’s rejection, he believes an agreement on the cybersecurity measure can be reached in time to pass the bill this week.
“There may well be a way forward here,” McConnell said. “We’ll continue to discuss the matter.”
Democrats are eager to amend the bill to strengthen privacy provisions.
Republicans are also interested in offering amendments. Some are unrelated to the bill.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who is running for president, wants to offer amendments to audit the Federal Reserve and remove federal funding from “sanctuary cities,” for example.
The cyberlegislation would foster information sharing between private companies and the government, which privacy watchdogs warn could result in unwanted government surveillance.
Among the foes of the legislation is Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who said the bill needs “significant reforms,” before he will support it.
Wyden pointed to the recent, massive hacking of employee data at the Office of Personnel Management to criticize a provision in the bill enabling private companies to share data with the government.
“To dump large quantities of their customer data over to the government with only a cursory review is not going to be very attractive to Americans who sent us here to represent them,” Wyden said.
