Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, having
badly bungled his strategy to keep the Patriot Act unchanged despite opposition among fellow congressional Republicans, Democrats, and a federal court, has conceded defeat and set votes for today on an alternative reform bill from the House, the USA Freedom Act. But he's not going down without a fight, and has
closed the amendment process to just a handful of amendments that would further weaken an already watered-down reform bill, working with Intelligence Committee Chair Richard Burr to craft reform roll-backs.
The decision to move ahead with the bipartisan House measure was painful both for Mr. McConnell and Mr. Burr given their strong reservations. Hoping to make improvements — and save some face—the Republican leadership was pushing changes to the legislation through amendments to be considered Tuesday.
But if any of those changes are approved, and some could be, the delay in getting the security agency programs up and operating will be extended since the measure will have to go back to the House for more debate and approval. Democrats said they were perplexed that Mr. McConnell seemed willing to prolong the agony.
He's not just extending the delay by making changes that the House will have to deal with—he wants to make changes that the House
might very well reject.
"The House is not likely to accept the changes proposed by Sen. [Mitch] McConnell," said Reps. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.). "Section 215 has already expired. These amendments will likely make that sunset permanent. The Senate must act quickly to pass the USA Freedom Act without amendment."
The amendment votes will be very close in the Senate, with most Democrats likely to object, along with some Republicans, like Utah's Mike Lee who is a lead sponsor of the Senate's version of the USA Freedom Act. Lee says they are "poison pills, impairing the bill’s chances of passing in the House," and will oppose them. McConnell set the votes up to require just a simple majority to pass, but if he does manage to pass these amendments by what is essentially brute force in the Senate, he risks a big fight with the House, which he'll likely have an even harder time bullying.
8:08 AM PT: First hurdle crossed.
Senate votes 83-14 to shut off debate on NSA surveillance reform bill
— @jamiedupree
This afternoon they will begin considering the amendments.
9:01 AM PT: Sanders has announced he will vote against the final bill. From an emailed statement:
“We must keep our country safe and protect ourselves from terrorists,” Sanders said, “but we can do that without undermining the constitutional and privacy rights which make us a free nation. This bill is an improvement over the USA Patriot Act but there are still too many opportunities for the government to collect information on innocent people.”