FISA Fight: What next?

You have to give it to House leadership--they've timed the FISA fight very well. First, they let the Protect America Act expire just before the Presidents' Day recess, when nothing could be done about it but a lot of rightwing screeching. That single act of bravery, and the realization that standing up to George Bush felt really good, undboutedly had a lot do with their ability to hold the caucus together to pass FISA legislation without telco amnesty yesterday. The day before they go on a two-week spring recess. That's two weeks in which there can't be any Republican floor maneuvers, and two weeks to prepare for the fight in the Senate.

So now we turn our eyes there, to terrain that has definitely been less friendly for retroactive amnesty foes than the House. The fact that Harry Reid was instrumental in working with Pelosi to set the vote up to minimize Republican shenanigans gives some hope. Here's Reid's statement on the House bill passage.

"I am very encouraged by House passage of a new FISA bill. The new House version adopts the basic structure of the Senate-passed bill, but contains added privacy protections. Now is the time for Republicans to come to the negotiating table so we can resolve the last few issues. The President should stop giving high-handed speeches in the Rose Garden and start working with Congress to finalize this important national security bill."

Now, Harry Reid knows as well as anybody that Bush and the Republicans aren't going to stop obstructing. That's just the kind of thing the Majority Leader of the Senate is supposed to say to the press, on the record. Then there's the kind of background information that "lawmakers from both parties" give to reporters suggesting that Congress and the White House are at such an impasse on this debate that they might just end up waiting until we have a new President to resolve the issue. This is not to suggest that Harry Reid was either one of the lawmakers quoted in the story, or that he floated the idea. It is, however, significant that that possiblity is being floated in the media. What was once unthinkable--not giving the President his way--is now being injected into the public debate.

There are a number of possible avenues for this to take, as Kagro outlined. As it stands now, procedurally, the bill

...arrives back in the Senate in privileged form, as a message from the House (the message being: we amended your crap) the consideration of which is not subject to filibuster. To be sure, the Republicans (or anyone willing to stand in their shoes) can filibuster the actual debate on the House amendment to Senate amendment, but they can't filibuster the question of whether or not to even have that debate, as they can with most other legislation.

That doesn't mean we're out of the woods, of course. The Senate, at Jay Rockefeller's urging, can still decide it wants to overlook the ridiculous trail of surveillance overreaches and lawbreaking in the "administration's" use of surveillance tools that emerges with each passing day.

So here are a few possiblities--the Senate passes the House bill, sends it to the President, he vetoes it and the issue dies for the remainder of his term. Or the Senate decides to amend the bill to correct some of the problems (basket warrants, most particularly) but leaves amnesty out of it, and they go back to conference. Or Rockefeller insists on trying to reinsert retroactive amnesty, and gets his way. And they are at an impasse, since the House has now flatly rejected amnesty, again.

It would be much harder for Rockefeller to reinsert amnesty if those Senators who defected and voted with him on the bad Senate bill could be peeled away. Remember that 16 of the 21 House Blue Dogs who originally signed onto the letter to Pelosi demanding she allow them to rubberstamp that bad Senate bill ended up supporting the better House bill. If House members can do it, surely Senators can.

But we should take the next two weeks while they are in their home states to ask them directly if they'll join with the House Dems and reject amnesty. Here are the Senators who voted yes on S. 2248, the bad Senate bill rejected by the House. If they're your Senator, find out where they'll be holding town meetings or other public events in the next two weeks, and go ask them.

• Baucus (D-MT)
• Bayh (D-IN)
• Carper (D-DE)
• Casey (D-PA)
• Conrad (D-ND)
• Inouye (D-HI)
• Johnson (D-SD)
• Kohl (D-WI)
• Landrieu (D-LA)
• Lincoln (D-AR)
• McCaskill (D-MO)
• Mikulski (D-MD)
• Nelson (D-FL)
• Nelson (D-NE)
• Pryor (D-AR)
• Rockefeller (D-WV)
• Salazar (D-CO)
• Webb (D-VA)
• Whitehouse (D-RI)
• Not voting: Clinton, Obama