January 28, 2008: Cloture fails on FISA bill; Republicans won't agree to a 30-day extension

Senate recesses until 20:20 this evening, for State of the Union address

[17:33]
The Senate has just recessed until this evening. I will be following the State of the Union address here tonight.

Procedural vote to add 30-day extension to current FISA law fails

[17:30]
A cloture vote on a Reid amendment that would have extended current FISA law by 30 days has just failed. The vote was 48 yea, 45 nay.

The Senate is about to recess. Until 20:20 tonight.

Now a cloture vote on a 30-day extension

[17:11]
McConnell says that the president will veto a 30-day extension. Reid says the House will pass it tomorrow morning. Reid says that we always knew that the judiciary and intelligence had concurrent jurisdiction and that this thing was gonna be tough. We want to all work to improve this, but we need some votes to do that.

Ayes: Democrats
Nays: Republicans
(perfectly party line)

A lot of senators are sitting in the seats or now standing in the well so this vote should be quick.

Democrats prevent cloture on intelligence committee's FISA bill

The cloture attempt fails. 48 yea, 45 nay. Needed 3/5 of all voting senators.

Ben Cardin (MD) is hammering that gavel. It's actually pretty effective in quieting people down.

Cloture vote on FISA legislation, pre-amendments...

[16:41]
Is it the sense of the senate that debate on the bill shall be brought to a close? The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. The clerk will call the roll. Mr. Akaka...

Cardin (MD) votes no from the chair. Cardin has an amendment he wants to offer that would sunset the legislation in 4 years as opposed to 6.

60 votes needed

Ayes: Republicans incl. Hagel, Pryor (AR), Landrieu (LA), Lincoln (AR)
Nays: Democrats incl. Clinton (NY) and Obama (IL), Specter (PA)
(party line so far except for Specter)

Clinton and Obama are both down there in the well. Obama talking to Kent Conrad (ND) and someone else. Clinton talking with Dodd and then (now) with Harry Reid. Obama talking to Kerry. Clinton now leaving. I think Obama just kissed the cheek of a clerk and then left. Maybe he just whispered something in her ear.

Ben Nelson (NE) talking to Maria Cantwell (WA) and Dick Durbin (IL). Nelson says something and Durbin cracks up.

The senators seem to be keeping themselves to their own aisles. Sherrod Brown runs down and gives the clerk a thumbs down. Hagel votes no. I was thinking maybe he'd vote "aye" considering he has an amendment out there still waiting to get heard. Indicates a serious party line vote here.

So far Specter, who just voted "nay," is the only senator to cross the aisle on this vote. Oh, look there, Mark Pryor (AR) voting "aye" along with the Republicans. Pryor very moderate on this issue.

Mary Landrieu (LA) just changed her vote. You wonder what goes into that. Lincoln also an "aye."

I hear country music in the background on CSPAN2. Like it's playing outside the room, perhaps in the middle of the capitol in connection with tonight's state of the union.

The drumbeat of scaring the American people...is what we'll hear tonight. —Reid

The President has us in a catch-22 on FISA, he says. Reject any statement that President Bush makes about FISA in his address tonight, says Reid.

Two votes on cloture coming up. First, cloture on the intelligence committee's new FISA legislation. Second, cloture on a piece of legislation that would extend the current FISA law by thirty days. Reid will vote no in the first vote and yes in the second.

We wouldn't be in the position of sanctioning retroactive immunity if the President had come to us with his request for a program in the first place. We're a deliberative body, let us deliberate, he says.

Republicans would agree to a short-term extension of current FISA law

[16:23]
Republican leader is now recognized. The cloture vote is minutes ahead. The intelligence committee's bill was voted out of committee 13-2, which is about as good as you're gonna get around here. Unfortunately, they didn't bring the bill up until just before Christmas and "then we had to hear" a filibuster of it. He is citing the Democrats' desire to reshape the judiciary committee bill piece by piece on top of the intelligence version. That bill, he says referring to the judiciary bill, will not become law.

But, he says, Republicans would offer a short term extension if necessary. It sounds like the current law will simply be extended so that the Senate can begin in earnest its work on a stimulus package.

Dodd espies a 'parliamentary nightmare'

[16:13]
Chris Dodd, eloquent on this issue so far, is on the floor. He says that "we find ourselves in the midst of a parliamentary nightmare". And it's true really. This legislation has been filibustered by both sides of the aisle!

Dodd says that the senate finds itself in a microcosm of retroactive immunity. He mentions "the President's favorite corporations". On a bill like this one, it would be ridiculous to cut out debate, he says. The amendments offered by my colleagues are serious proposals and need serious consideration. Unconstl. reverse targeting. Something "vacuum cleaner".

"I will vote against cloture, because we haven't done our job here yet."

"Putting the rights of Bush's favorite corporations over those of U.S. citizens."

If this were an isolated incident on this administration's record, he says, he would not be out there filibustering retroactive immunity. But this is part of a pattern, he says, a pattern of abuse by this administration. He says he doesn't need to enumerate the examples but of course he then reels off Abu Ghraib, habeas corpus, secret rendition, the U.S. attorneys.

He yields the floor.
[16:22]

Republicans call for cloture, no extension of Protect America Act

[16:05]
Intelligence committee vice chairman Kit Bond (MO) urged senators to vote for cloture on the intelligence committee's version of new FISA legislation. That cloture vote occurs at 16:30 this afternoon. Saxby Chambliss (GA), speaking later, argued against a one-month or multi-month extension of the current FISA legislation, known as the Protect America Act of 2007.

Under current law, a court order is not necessarily required to for the gov't to listen to the communication of a U.S. person inside or speaking to someone in a foreign country. The idea is, a suspect makes a call. If that call goes to a U.S. person, the gov't is not going to stop listening to it. There is no time to get a court order (warrant) in that situation, Bond is now saying.

It is not clear whether it was this kind of activity that telecom companies were assisting the government in monitoring. If the new legislation grants those companies immunity, we will never know.

Ben Cardin (MD) sitting in the chair informs Bond that he is "now entering" time that the minority had reserved for the minority leader.

Bond says, "Oh. Well in that case."
[16:12]

Architect of new FISA bill urges his colleagues to vote against cloture, saying that White House has taken FISA bill hostage

[15:08]
Jay Rockefeller (WV) has risen to urge his fellow senators to vote against cloture on the FISA bill later this afternoon. Cloture limits further debate on a bill, and a successful cloture vote signals that senators are moving closer to passing a bill. The FISA bill before the senate came out of Rockefeller's own intelligence committee.

However, Republicans last week erected a blockade preventing Democrats from offering amendments to the intelligence committee's version of the bill. Rockefeller now says that he will vote against cloture as a matter of principle. Senators should vote to reassert "something called the role of Congress.... Oversight is what we do." Senators should be allowed to improve upon the bill with amendments, he says.

And, interestingly, he is saying that the White House directed senators to erect their amendment embargo on the bill so as to prevent speedy passage of a new FISA bill. For a senator to call up an amendment on the floor of the senate, unanimous consent is required. Whenever a Democrat tried to bring up an amendment last week, a Republican was there to object.

This blockade came only after senators tabled an amendment to the FISA bill that would have substituted the judiciary committee's version of the legislation for that of the intelligence committee. The judiciary committee version omitted immunity for telecom companies cooperating with the government's warrantless surveillance program. Republican senators argued that when senators tabled the judiciary substitute, they were indicating that they were rejecting the substitute wholesale. Democrats said, Wait a minute, there might still be some parts of the judiciary bill that we could all agree to add to the intelligence committee's version. The amendment blockade prevented this attempt to bring up the judiciary substitute in piecemeal fashion.

President Bush has vowed to veto any bill not containing this immunity provision. In an astounding development, Bush has now decreed that he would veto a 30-day extension of the current FISA law.

We should debate the immunity provision, says Rockefeller.

Morning Business Speeches

[15:02]
The Senate has been in session for about an hour. Several senators have spoke on various subjects:

- Majority leader Harry Reid (NV) referenced a bill that would extend the current version of FISA until July 1, 2008. He made mention of the bill but moved on.

- Minority leader Mitch McConnell (KY) made a speech about bipartisanship.

- Bob Bennett (UT) and Orrin Hatch (UT) mourned the death of a former president of the Church of Latter Day Saints, who died recently at the age of 97.

- Arlen Specter (PA) wondered why his amendment substituting the U.S. gov't as defendant for telecom companies in any suits stemming from the warrantless surveillance program that began in late 2001.

- Byron Dorgan (ND) said that a stimulus package was all well and good but he asserted that the economy has deeper structural problems that a stimulus can't fix. In an aside, he noted that the U.S. would probably borrow the $150b in the stimulus package from China and that recipients of stimulus monies would go buy Chinese goods from Walmart.

Precap:

The Senate will get a late start, gaveling in at 14:00. At 16:30, senators will vote on cloture on the intelligence committee's version of the FISA reform legislation, which includes telecom immunity.

A successful cloture vote would mean that senators are willing to limit debate on amendments to the bill. Democrats were unable last week to offer amendments to the intelligence committee's version of the bill because Republicans were objecting to any senator's request to introduce an amendment (unanimous consent is required).

Thus, with the Democrats stymied by a Republican amendment embargo, it is highly unlikely that there will be the requisite 60 votes for cloture this afternoon.