WASHINGTON—The Senate early Saturday defeated a string
of efforts to extend the Patriot Act as lawmakers splintered over
its contentious phone surveillance program and left town with no
plan in place to prevent the law from lapsing.
After next week's Memorial Day recess, the Senate will resume
its debate over the national security law at 4 p.m. on May 31,
eight hours before the law expires at midnight.
Lawmakers fractured through the evening, rejecting a House bill
overhauling the NSA, a two-month Patriot Act extension and then
increasingly short extensions of the law. Primarily due to
objections from presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) the
Senate couldn't agree to pass even a 24-hour extension of the
Patriot Act, the 2001 law that expanded the government's authority
to search for terror suspects.
"We better be ready next Sunday afternoon," Senate Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said on the Senate floor after the
early-morning series of blocked votes. Next Sunday's session will
be an "opportunity to act responsibly and not allow this program to
expire," he said.
Beginning shortly after midnight, the Senate narrowly blocked a
House bill ending the NSA's collection of bulk phone information,
requiring the government instead to obtain court approval to
request phone records from companies on a case-by-case basis. The
vote to move forward with the House bill was 57-42, short of the 60
votes needed to clear the Senate's procedural threshold.
The bill had easily cleared the House with bipartisan support
last week and was backed by the White House.
Following the defeat of the House bill, the Senate then blocked
a two-month extension of the Patriot Act, the 2001 law that
expanded the government's authority to search for terror suspects.
The two-month patch was defeated in a 45-54 procedural vote.
With the chamber's two primary options exhausted, Mr. McConnell
sought to get an agreement to extend the Patriot Act for a week,
and then periods of four and two days and finally, one day. But Mr.
Paul and some Democratic senators, including Sen. Martin Heinrich
of New Mexico, objected. Mr. Paul has made the NSA program a
centerpiece of his 2016 campaign, saying it violates Fourth
Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure.
"This is a debate that should be had," Mr. Paul said on the
Senate floor early Saturday. He said he would have agreed to a
short-term Patriot Act extension had Senate leaders guaranteed two
of his amendments would see future votes and would be able to pass
with 50 votes.
Mr. Paul's procedural moves frustrated some other Republicans,
who said they worried about the consequences of a potential Patriot
Act lapse.
"There's 99 people who were basically willing to have this put
off for a period of time so there could be negotiations and one
person decided that he didn't want to have that happen," said Sen.
John McCain (R. Ariz.), suggesting that Mr. Paul was motivated to
take a stand to boost his campaign fundraising. "I'm sure it's a
great revenue raiser."
When lawmakers return on Sunday, they are expected to revisit
the House bill, which came close to securing the needed 60
votes.
"We had a good piece of legislation that protects the security
of the country but also protects the privacy of American citizens,"
said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.), a Senate sponsor of the House
bill. "The mistake is not to have it pass now."
The House isn't expected to consider a short-term Patriot Act
extension before it returns to Washington on the evening of June 1,
according to GOP aides.
"The Senate has failed to make the important reforms necessary,
jeopardizing Americans' civil liberties and our national security,"
the House Judiciary Committee's chairman, Bob Goodlatte (R., Va.)
and top Democrat, John Conyers of Michigan, said in a statement
with two other lawmakers after the House bill was defeated in the
Senate.
Known for his meticulous, long-range political strategizing, Mr.
McConnell had surprised many in the Capitol by taking on a fight
with the House over the nitty-gritty policy details of the bill. In
particular, Mr. McConnell worried that the House bill wouldn't
require phone companies to retain the phone records information
that could help authorities spot terrorist activity.
"This is beyond troubling," Mr. McConnell said on the Senate
floor Friday. "We should not establish an alternate system that
contains a glaring hole in its ability to function, namely the
complete absence of any requirement for data retention."
Democrats criticized Mr. McConnell for waiting until the last
minute to try to extend the Patriot Act in an effort to use the
impending recess to pressure lawmakers to reach agreements.
"Senator McConnell set several bills on a collision course
without any real plan to resolve the inevitable pileup," said Adam
Jentleson, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D.,
Nev.), saying Mr. McConnell "badly misjudged the members of his own
conference."
Earlier this week Mr. Paul spoke on the Senate floor for
10-and-half hours, criticizing the NSA's phone surveillance
program.
Write to Kristina Peterson at kristina.peterson@wsj.com
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