What Happened w/ FISA Bill Yesterday?

[vanlassie]

I'm out of the loop a bit right now.
vanlassie

[meegbear]

1. Me too, crooksandliars.com has this pic ...

so I'm not too sure I'm gonna like it.

[TooBigaTent]

2. Senate Dems tried to push a version WITHOUT immunity for corps that aided

spying but that failed, with the help of several traitorous Democrats.

They would just not allow that alternative to get a hearing. The result is that the "bad" version is still alive.

[vanlassie]

3. So Calls To Senators are Still In Order. Thanks!

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

5. YES! Called yesterday and at least the staffer with whom I spoke had a clear understanding of the

Leahy amendment.

I hate when I call and the staffer says, "What? I hadn't heard about that"

MKJ

[LSK]

4. the judiciary version that had no immunity got voted down

So the intelligence version with the immunity goes forward in the Senate.

The House version does not have immunity and the bill could stall there again.

[Robbien]

6. Booman has the best synopsis of what happened so far

The Senate voted 60-36 yesterday to table (kill) the Judiciary Committee's (SJC) version of the FISA bill. Then things got interesting. The Republicans repeatedly refused to grant unanimous consent to consider amendments to the underlying Senate Select Intelligence Committee's (SSCI) version of the FISA bill. Then Minority Leader Mitch McConnell filed a cloture motion to cut off debate and force a vote on the SSCI version. The vote on cloture is scheduled for 4:30 on Monday, only a few hours before the president's State of the Union speech. As I understand it (via Tagaris), there would be one pending amendment if cloture is successfully invoked (by prior agreement) and that would be a Dodd-Feinstein amendment related to blanket warrants.

A couple of points here. First, the Republicans got 60 votes to table the SJC bill, so they can presumably get 60 votes to override Senator Dodd's filibuster of the SSCI bill. In fact, as both John McCain and Lindsay Graham did not vote yesterday, the Republicans can presumably get 62 votes to override Senator Dodd's filibuster. But things are not so simple.

Yes, it is true that twelve Democrats crossed the aisle to kill the SJC bill, but they didn't agree to cut off all debate (and amendments) on the SSCI bill. I don't think the Democrats anticipated that the Republicans would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Had the Republicans allowed up or down votes on the various amendments, they had the votes to kill any amendment that stripped telco immunity from the bill and to override any filibuster. In other words, they could have won. But, apparently, they do not have faith that they can defeat other amendments that are unacceptable to the administration. Therefore, they objected to letting those amendments come to the floor.

more on his analysis of what may happen next
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2008/1/25/1490/54121

[Muttocracy]

7. thanks for that summary - by the way, on cspan2 right now n/t