The Hill reports that Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) has announced that the House is not likely to vote on FISA ‘anytime soon,’ apparently waiting to see how the Senate handles the issue:
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.”
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