Congress
Senate to seek short-term punt for key surveillance power
The Senate is preparing a weekslong punt for an expiring spy law after House Republicans linked a longer-term extension to a digital currency ban that is DOA across the Capitol.
“We’re probably going to end up doing a short-term,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Wednesday, adding that leadership is currently “running the traps” on a short-term extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Thune said that punt would last about 45 days, putting the new deadline in mid-June.
The decision to do another short-term extension comes as the surveillance power is set to expire Thursday night. The House passed a three-year extension of the surveillance law Wednesday, but Republicans are attaching a permanent ban on the Federal Reserve issuing a digital currency.
Thune publicly warned House Republicans against the step Tuesday, calling the combination a “bad idea” that would be “dead on arrival” in the Senate.
Thune said that Speaker Mike Johnson, who he met with Wednesday, is aware of the plan to pass a short-term FISA extension. He added that he told the Louisiana Republican that the Senate “can’t move a bill” that has the currency ban attached.
The House would also need to approve any short-term extension before midnight Thursday to avoid any lapse in the surveillance power, which allows intelligence agencies to monitor foreigners abroad but also sweeps up communications involving Americans — alarming civil libertarians.
Congress
House vote hits 2-hour mark amid revolts
Speaker Mike Johnson is fighting multiple separate revolts within his party while the vote on the Senate-backed budget resolution has been held open for nearly two hours.
Johnson has spent Wednesday trying to push a series of legislative priorities through his chamber, including the farm bill as well as the budget framework, which would set up a path for funding immigration enforcement amid a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security.
Midwest and farm-state Republicans have so far withheld their votes for the budget measure in a revolt over Johnson agreeing to decouple a measure from the farm bill that would have allowed year-round sales of E15—an ethanol-gasoline blend.
A large huddle of lawmakers on the floor with Johnson erupted in yelling at the speaker before he moved the meeting off the floor and out of earshot of reporters.
“Farm people want a farm vote. And corn-belt people want [renewable fuel standard] changes. So we’re trying to work through it,” House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) explained. Those issues are not directly related to the budget resolution currently on the floor.
A separate group, made up of GOP hard-liners and rallied by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), stayed on the floor, arguing loudly with leadership staff and Arrington and racking up votes against the budget plan.
“We’re gonna have a big family meeting in here. We’ll get everybody on the same page,” Johnson told reporters as both groups eventually gathered in his office.
The House chamber emptied of lawmakers and the clock continued to tick up on the open vote.
“That’s the best way to have — get people to negotiate,” Johnson said of the open vote.
Congress
The headache that won’t go away for Mike Johnson
An arcane financial policy idea that conservatives love to hate has become a perpetual nightmare for House Speaker Mike Johnson.
House Republicans have been pushing legislation for years that would ban the Federal Reserve from creating a central bank digital currency. Republican hardliners have repeatedly pushed to ban a CBDC in key bills that require Democratic support in the Senate to pass, imperiling their path forward.
Conservatives secured their biggest victory on the issue yet Wednesday after convincing GOP leaders to combine the digital currency ban with a bill reauthorizing government spy powers set to expire Thursday. That’s setting up a major clash with the Senate, where Democrats oppose a CBDC ban and Majority Leader John Thune has warned that a combined bill is “dead on arrival.”
House hardliners’ anti-CBDC crusade has contributed to the growing dysfunction among House Republicans. The issue is also bewildering to Senate Republicans, who don’t want the push to imperil other legislation.
“I understand if there is a fear out there on it, but right now we’ve got some other fish to fry, and we need their help to get these other issues done,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), a senior member of the Senate Banking Committee. “Let’s take the wins that we can get.”
The House on Wednesday approved an extension of a key section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that will be combined with a CBDC ban before being sent to the Senate. The combined measure is unlikely to clear the upper chamber, and it’s unclear how lawmakers will extend the spy powers before they expire at the end of the month.
Conservative hardliners say a CBDC would lead to government financial surveillance and suffocate private-sector innovation in the crypto industry. The ban has been a priority of the House Freedom Caucus this congress.
“It’s a worthwhile cause,” Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) said of the ban. “It’s the creepiest surveillance tool ever developed.”
The trouble for Johnson started last July when conservative hardliners froze the House floor, demanding that the CBDC ban be included as part of a larger crypto measure. To resolve a standoff over the demand, Johnson promised the House Freedom Caucus that the ban would be attached to a must-pass defense authorization bill later that year — a pledge he later broke.
The issue created another snag when GOP hardliners said a temporary ban included in a now-stalled Senate housing package didn’t go far enough, threatening to tank the bill if it came to the floor. Now FISA’s fate is wrapped up in the issue.
Johnson told reporters Wednesday that “the Senate knows exactly what we’re doing, of course.”
“They’re watching this very closely, and hopefully they can process what we send them,” Johnson said.
The vast majority of Republicans support the CBDC ban. However, most don’t think the issue should hold up other major legislative party priorities.
Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.), a senior House Financial Services Committee member, said the ban was an “important issue” but “shouldn’t prevent us from making progress in other areas.”
Another senior House Financial Services Committee member, Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.), said that he wants a ban “probably more than a lot of folks do” but that “people are not necessarily using the proper time, proper place” to push the policy.
Congress
House passes three-year extension of key spy power
The House passed a three-year reauthorization of a key spy power Wednesday, sending the extension to the Senate one day before it is set to expire.
A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers voted 235-191 to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act after weeks of agonizing negotiations and intraparty disputes.
But the saga isn’t over yet. The Senate is unlikely to clear the House-passed extension, which will be sent over with an unrelated, permanent ban on the Federal Reserve’s ability to issue a digital currency attached.
That provision was included at the behest of ultraconservatives, but it is so divisive across the Capitol that it has stalled a major affordable housing package for months. Senate Majority Leader John Thune earlier this week warned that the digital currency ban was “not happening” as part of spy law renewal.
That means the Senate could send its own version of a Section 702 extension back to the House with just hours to spare before the law expires Thursday night.
The major U.S. spy program targets foreigners but also sweeps up data on Americans in the process, and privacy hawks on both sides of the aisle are demanding new guardrails to prevent the federal government from conducting warrantless surveillance on its own citizens.
After initially pushing for a White House-backed straight 18-month extension, GOP leaders agreed to add clarifications on Fourth Amendment protections and additional penalties for privacy violations to get many holdouts on board.
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