Congress is being dragged, kicking and screaming, back into a warrant requirement fight tied to the reauthorization of a key surveillance authority.
Senators are open — but hardly eager — to lead the way on reauthorizing FISA Section 702 following House Republicans’ stunning failure last week. They’re resigned that anything to re-up the program must ultimately now pass muster with a bloc of hardline House conservatives determined to make significant changes to the program, which expires on April 30.
“Obviously, the bottleneck here is the House,” Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) said. “What can pass there that is workable and would be supported in the Senate?”
Republican senators acknowledged the bicameral and bipartisan appetite for further changes to the highly scrutinized program. The White House has pushed for a clean, 18-month extension. But a rule to allow for consideration of that plan couldn’t clear the House amid opposition from 20 GOP lawmakers.
“My guess is we’re going to want some more reform. And the question is how much and how quickly,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said. “I think if we pass something, that puts a lot of pressure on my friends in the House to pass it.”
Senate GOP leaders indicated they’d made no decisions yet, but that any changes would have to be agreed to by both chambers.
“For some people, they want to do some tweaks on it,” said Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), a member of leadership also on the Senate Intelligence Committee. “Every tweak’s got to be vetted, and you got to figure out, how long does that take?”
Conservatives on the House Freedom Caucus said Monday they had no plans to waver on their demands for a warrant requirement as part of a compromise bill.
Leading House Democrats say they’d be open to making a deal with Republicans, but they warned the window for bipartisanship may be closing.
“Frankly, we’re behind where we were a week ago,” Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the ranking Democrat of the Intelligence Committee, said. “The insane performance on Thursday night created a lot of bad will.”
Senate hurdles await. Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), leading voices for FISA reforms, vowed Monday they won’t allow speedy consideration of any deal without changes for warrants and other privacy protections.
“If they want to condense time, they’ll have to let us have an amendment” on warrants, Paul said. “It’s disappointing, though, that most of the people have been abused by the system — have actually been spied on — have now capitulated and said, ‘Oh, well.’”
