[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 24 (Wednesday, February 13, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Page S926]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, with regard to the Foreign Intelligence 
Surveillance Act, it passed in the Senate yesterday 68 to 29--an 
overwhelming bipartisan ratification of the Rockefeller-Bond bipartisan 
compromise to get us a permanent Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act 
in place. There were a number of efforts to weaken the bill on the 
floor of the Senate. They were all defeated on a bipartisan basis. Most 
of them were defeated by a margin of 2 to 1.
  Over in the House, we have heard from 21 Democratic Members, the 
``Blue Dogs,'' who say the House ought to take up this overwhelmingly 
bipartisan Senate bill and pass it and send it to the President for his 
signature.
  We had an important bipartisan victory just last week on the stimulus 
package. We have an opportunity to do it again this week on this 
extraordinarily important piece of legislation.
  In thinking about how long we have been dealing with this 
legislation, we passed a short-term extension back in August. We have 
had 6 months to figure out what we wanted to do. We passed extremely 
important legislation--probably the most important piece of legislation 
we will pass this Congress--yesterday on an overwhelming bipartisan 
vote. The House of Representatives surely has followed what we have 
done. There is a bipartisan majority in the House of Representatives 
for what we did yesterday in the Senate. We know that. There is a 
bipartisan majority in the House of Representatives to take up and pass 
the Senate-passed bill in the House of Representatives now. That is 
what we know. That is what I hope will be done. The House will have an 
opportunity over the next couple of days to make its decision. But I 
think the President has correctly assessed the situation and decided we 
have had ample time to deal with this legislation, to find out how we 
felt about it, to vote on it, to make whatever changes people thought 
were appropriate. And we know there is a bipartisan majority in the 
House waiting to pass it. I hope they will be given that opportunity 
later this week.

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