Sunday Showdown On Patriot Act
Sunday will be a tense day in the U.S. Senate, as the New York Times reports:
The Senate is heading for a tense and unusual Sunday showdown over the expiring antiterrorism surveillance powers of the National Security Agency, and Senator Mitch McConnell, five months into his tenure as majority leader, has a lot on the line.
Despite strong bipartisan support in the Senate for a House-passed overhaul, Mr. McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, has held out against the legislation in favor of an extension of current programs even as a federal appeals court recently questioned the constitutionality of the N.S.A. approach…
Senator Rand Paul, the junior Republican senator from Mr. McConnell’s home state, is opposed to both an extension of the current law and the House bill unless significant changes are made. And while the House measure is tantalizingly close to the 60 votes needed to advance, Mr. McConnell and Senator Richard M. Burr, the North Carolina Republican who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, remain opposed to it. So while passage of that measure is probably the Senate’s easiest way out, it might not happen without Mr. McConnell’s blessing.
It should make for a riveting Sunday in the Senate, as Mr. McConnell and his colleagues try to prevent the lapse of major antiterrorism programs while Republicans who pride themselves on national security control the House and Senate.
Copyright 2015 Liberaland
7 responses to Sunday Showdown On Patriot Act
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Suzanne McFly May 29th, 2015 at 11:38
Am I the only one pissed that “congress working on Sunday” is breaking news?
allison1050 May 29th, 2015 at 12:13
No, here I am once again in agreement with you.
Suzanne McFly May 29th, 2015 at 14:05
Cool, glad I’m not alone.
allison1050 May 29th, 2015 at 16:38
No way!
robert May 29th, 2015 at 18:03
so congress once again has to think about whats constitutional and whats not ?
is this like a grade school kid flunking a test only to take the course all over again
arc99 May 29th, 2015 at 18:20
given how scarce unanimous Supreme Court decisions have been throughout our history, it is not unreasonable that there is disagreement on what is Constitutional and what is not.
if the most learned Constitutional scholars cannot agree 100% of the time, it is not realistic to expect that politicians will. that is why we have courts and as I pointed out, many times those courts are not unanimous in their decisions.
robert May 29th, 2015 at 18:25
good idea !
congress should send the patriot act to the supreme court to decide if its constitutional