How the Senate Fell Apart and Failed to Deal With the Patriot Act
The Senate leaves for vacation with unfinished business on NSA surveillance.
BY DUSTIN VOLZ, BRENDAN SASSO, SARAH MIMMS AND RACHEL ROUBEIN
May 22, 2015
The Senate is going on vacation, but it didn't finish its homework.
With no solution in sight to the Patriot Act quagmire that kept lawmakers voting until past 1 a.m. Saturday, senators have left town for a week. They will return next Sunday—just hours before the deadline to act on the future of the federal government's sweeping domestic-spying powers.
In a tense vote after midnight, the Senate failed to move forward on the House-passed USA Freedom Act, legislation that would end the National Security Agency's bulk collection of call data. The vote was 57-to-42, just short of the 60-vote threshold needed after stiff opposition and last-minute whipping Friday night into Saturday from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other GOP defense hawks. Senators then easily rejected a motion to move ahead on a McConnell-backed two-month extension of the Patriot Act's spying authorities.
If the two high-stakes votes at 1 a.m. weren't enough, the dramatic scene that followed showed how tense things are in the Senate.
McConnell proposed an even shorter-term extension of the surveillance authorities—from their current June 1 expiration date through June 8, giving the Senate time to take its Memorial Day recess before returning to take up the issue once again. Sen. Rand Paul objected on grounds he wanted up-or-down votes on his amendments to the Freedom Act, and what followed was an unusual exchange between McConnell and pro-reform senators that resulted, where much of the night did, in no solution.
McConnell suggested putting off the debate until June 5, earning objection from Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon. Then McConnell tried for June 3, to the objection of Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico. Finally the majority leader asked for an extension through June 2. Paul objected again, and the Senate took another short break.
A flushed McConnell attempted to figure out his next move, while Paul—the junior senator from Kentucky who's using his NSA stand to promote a presidential run—strolled around the perimeter of the chamber, hands tucked into his suit pockets.
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