Or at least, that's what he wants you to believe, bizarrely enough.
CQ Politics:
A potential revolt by a group of Democrats pressed party leaders into compromising on a rewrite of electronic surveillance rules that could come to a House vote by week's end, a top Democrat said Wednesday.
Asked why Democrats don’t put aside the surveillance legislation until a new president is elected in November, Hoyer said he would prefer to do so, but can’t because so many House Democrats are prepared to vote for the Senate bill that he and other top House Democrats oppose.
“Clearly enough Democrats have indicated in the House they would vote for the Senate bill if it came to the floor. The alternatives are either the Senate bill or a bill significantly better” reached through negotiations with the Senate and the White House, he said.
“Many Democrats have indicated to me they are willing to wait as long as an alternative is in sight. If not, they are prepared to vote for the Senate bill,” Hoyer said.
Question: Why would "so many House Democrats" be clamoring for the Senate bill, when the last time the Senate bill was in the House, they voted to send it back, amended, without immunity in it?
Question: How will "enough Democrats" vote for the Senate bill if it isn't on the floor? That bill only gets to the floor two ways: 1) Steny Hoyer brings it there, or; 2) a majority of the House signs a discharge petition to bring it there.
There is a third way, of course, and that's for the Republicans to attempt a motion to recommit some other bill with instructions to tack on the text of the Senate FISA bill. But I haven't seen a germane bill on the near horizon on the schedule for them to try this with.
No Democrats have signed the discharge petition -- ironically filed by disgraced, two-timing daddy Vito Fossella, who probably wishes he still had the privacy he's trying to strip from you -- so how is that Senate bill going to get to the floor?
Question: If it does get to the floor via discharge petition, will we be entitled to ask whether or not Steny Hoyer the "leader" of this majority?