Conservatives warm to proposed changes in FISA reauthorization bill

Conservative holdouts on Thursday appear to be warming to modifications proposed to the legislation reauthorizing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, one day after 19 of them tanked a procedural vote related to the bill delivering another embarrassing defeat to House Republican leadership.

Conservative holdouts on Thursday appear to be warming to modifications proposed to the legislation reauthorizing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, one day after 19 of them tanked a procedural vote related to the bill delivering another embarrassing defeat to House Republican leadership. The new version of the bill would be a two-year reauthorization instead of five years, meaning that if former President Donald Trump won the presidential election this year, the legislation would be up in time for Trump to overhaul FISA laws next time around. “We just bought President Trump an at bat. The previous version of this bill would have kicked reauthorization beyond the Trump presidency,” Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida told CNN, pledging to back the rule vote on the floor, which could happen as soon as Friday. “Now President Trump gets an at bat to fix the system that victimized him more than any other American.” The House Rules Committee voted 8-4 Thursday evening to bring the revised FISA reauthorization bill to the floor for debate. The legislation is expected to come to the floor Friday morning. Hardliners are touting the two-year reauthorization as a major win as well as an agreement that next week they will have a separate floor vote on data privacy legislation from Republican Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio that will be subject to a rule. “We’re also excited as a part of these discussions to get an absolute assurance from the speaker that next week we will have the Davidson amendment up as a rule vote,” Gaetz said. Gaetz said the hardliners are “really grateful at the receptiveness to some of our requests.”