Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s influence will be tested on Tuesday, when lawmakers vote on three of his amendments that are aimed at preserving some of the federal government’s authority to conduct anti-terrorism surveillance.
McConnell wants to make several changes to the USA Freedom Act, a bill that would extend a lapsed federal anti-terror surveillance program with significant reforms, including an end to the government’s bulk data collection program. Those votes are slated for Tuesday.
But his effort to win support for the amendments was complicated Monday by warnings from both Republican and Democratic House lawmakers, who passed the USA Freedom Act overwhelmingly last month and are resisting any move to alter it.
“The House is not likely to accept the changes proposed by Senator McConnell,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and ranking member John Conyers, D-Mich., said in a statement on Monday.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., however, would not rule out taking up the Senate-altered version, though he would not say he supported the amendments. “The best thing for the Senate to do is take up the House bill and send it to the president,” McCarthy said.
But McConnell is pushing ahead with the proposed changes. His top lieutenant, John Cornyn, R-Texas, said McConnell’s amendments would “strengthen the House bill.” He wouldn’t confirm whether the changes would win enough support.
Passage of each proposal would require a simple majority of 51 votes, not 60, because the amendments are considered germane to the legislation.
“We’re talking to people,” Cornyn told the Washington Examiner. “We’re having some good conversations. We’re working.”
A failure for McConnell at this stage would be the second blow to the new majority leader on the spy bill. He already had to back down from his demand that expiring elements of the USA Patriot Act be extended as-is.
McConnell has had his share of ups and downs as majority leader so far. In January, he was able to put the Senate on course to pass a bill approving the Keystone pipeline, over the objections of President Obama. But in February, he was unable to force Senate Democrats to swallow language defunding Obama’s immigration action, and ultimately had to accept defeat by passing a Homeland Security bill that didn’t touch immigration policy.
One of McConnell’s amendments to the spy bill would lengthen a transition period for implementation of the USA Freedom Act surveillance reforms from six months to a full year. McConnell said this would provide the National Security Agency adequate time to switch from collecting domestic electronic data on its own to obtaining the data as needed from the telecommunications companies.
A second provision would require the Director of National Intelligence to certify that the surveillance program can function effectively under the USA Freedom Act reforms, while a third amendment would mandate that the phone companies provide the federal government notice if if they plan to change how they store customer data.
The amendments were authored by Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., who has said he believes the USA Freedom Act in its current form would gut the surveillance program.
In a floor speech Monday, Burr said he is hoping the House will view the transition period amendment as a compromise from the current bill, which would provide only six months time for the phone companies to set up a system to provide data to the NSA.
“That 12-month agreement, I think, would give me confidence knowing that we’re taking care of the technology needed for the telecoms to search in real time for their numbers,” Burr said.
