After weeks of back-and-forth over renewal of a government surveillance program, the House was forced to accept a short-term extension sent over by the Senate or risk the spy tool expiring altogether.
The House passed the Senate’s 45-day clean extension of section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act on Thursday afternoon, 261-111. Overall, 85 Republicans opposed the short-term patch that did not include a ban on central bank digital currency negotiated by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) as part of a deal with conservative holdouts.
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The Senate, which had warned that any extension of the spy program that included the digital currency attachment would be dead on arrival, thumbed its nose at the House-passed three-year extension. Instead, the Senate passed via unanimous consent the 45-day stop gap and sent it back to the House before departing Washington for a more than weeklong recess.
With the FISA program set to expire on Friday at midnight, the House was forced to take up the Senate’s version.
The Senate play enraged conservatives. Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) said hardliners rejected the Senate’s approach, and accused Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) of not giving the House’s version “the time of day.”
Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) accused the Senate of kicking the can down the road and said the “supposedly the greatest deliberative body in the world, is yet again not deliberating.”
Shortly after the Senate passed its short-term patch, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) was seen sitting in the House chamber and told the Washington Examiner that he “can’t in good conscience let them violate the Constitution” by passing the extension without a recorded vote. Massie objected to passing the extension by unanimous consent, forcing the legislation to a floor vote instead.
The House sent its three-year extension of section 702 to the Senate on Wednesday, which included oversight guardrails and penalties for abuses of the spy program. FISA grants the government warrantless spy powers over foreign nationals abroad.
But as part of House GOP leadership’s deal with conservative holdouts, the digital currency ban was also attached to the reauthorization bill before it was sent to the Senate. The ban has long been a source of disagreement between the chambers. It would prohibit the Federal Reserve from establishing a digital currency, which proponents of the ban say would infringe on privacy rights because the federal government could more easily track digital currencies.
Thune previously warned Johnson that the House version would be dead on arrival, given the need to overcome a 60-vote filibuster with Democratic support. Republicans and Democrats in the upper chamber ultimately agreed on the 45-day clean extension after Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) received assurances that Senate intelligence committee Chairman Tom Cotton (R-AR) would urge the Justice Department and the director of national intelligence to declassify a FISA court ruling in the coming weeks. Wyden alleges that once made transparent, the ruling will reveal how the program is used on Americans.
“In my view, it’s going to take a certain amount of time,” Thune told reporters Thursday while advocating a 45-day extension. “I think that gives us a sufficient amount of time.”
OVER 40 HOUSE DEMOCRATS BAIL JOHNSON OUT ON THREE-YEAR EXTENSION OF GOVERNMENT SPY POWERS
That same morning, Johnson said the “simplest” way to pass a reauthorization of the surveillance program would be for the Senate to pass the House’s three-year extension.
“That is the simplest way out of this,” Johnson said. “All that we did was add the anti-CBDC provision, and that’s something that’s broadly supported. Every House Republican does. I think some Democrats in the House support that provision.”
Lauren Green contributed to this report.
