Stakeout Following Republican Policy Committee Meeting with Senators Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Christopher Bond (R-MO) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ)
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SEN. MCCONNELL: Good afternoon, everyone.
I want to take a few moments to talk about the state of play on the stimulus package. All of us understand that the House of Representatives, hopefully on an overwhelming bipartisan basis, is going to pass, at some point today, an economic stimulus package, supported by the Democratic speaker, the Republican leader and the Republican administration.
What clearly seems to be called for here is a bipartisan accomplishment that reinforces the markets and the American people that the government is aware that the economy is slowing and wants to do something about it. The quickest way to achieve that goal of reassuring the public, making clear that they know that both parties can cooperate on something important for our future, would be for the Senate to take up and pass the House-passed bill, send it down to the president for signature. I hope that will be possible.
This is not a time to get into some kind of testing of wills between the two congressional bodies. This is a time to show that we can rise above partisanship, do something important and do it quickly. And it strikes me that the only way to achieve that would be to take up and pass the House-passed bill.
Now I know that's the view of the speaker. I think she may have expressed herself on that issue today. And I know it is the view of the Republican leader of the House. So that's what I hope in the coming weeks we'll be able to achieve.
Now, the other big issue is on the floor before us now. We have -- I'm going to call on Senator Bond here, who is our expert on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act; just by reminding everyone that this bill, the Rockefeller-Bond bill, came out of the Intelligence Committee 13 to 2. It is a bipartisan bill. The president will sign it. This would be yet another opportunity to demonstrate to the public that we can accomplish something important on a bipartisan basis.
With that, let me turn it over to our ranking member, Senator Bond.
SEN. BOND: Thank you very much, Mitch.
Those of you who have been following the floor have seen more of me than you want to. I note by the glazed look in your eyes that you've probably heard too much about FISA already. But FISA is vitally important. It is the means by which we are -- enable our intelligence community to intercept electronic communications from foreign terrorists coming in to the United States.
Now, the bill that we passed, as our leader, Senator McConnell said, not only had a 13 to 2 bipartisan majority, but it works for the intelligence community. We've pushed as hard as we can and obtained additional protections for American civil rights and civil liberties, and those are in the bill.
Now we need to get this passed because the current law expires February 1, and we could get it passed if we followed the rules that we normally follow on very important and controversial legislation like this; and ask that any amendment offered pass by 60 votes. When I brought the Protect America Act to the floor to pass in August, it had 60 votes. When Senator Reid said he was going to bring it to the floor in December before it was filibustered, he said any amendment needs 60 votes. Why 60 votes? Because if this bill is deconstructed or if it is changed on a 47-46 vote to make it impossible for the intelligence community to continue to operate its surveillance activities, that bill will never pass. In other words, if we don't have bipartisan support with 60 votes for the amendments, then that bill is not going to pass, and we will waste time on that until we come back and get it right. It will not be passed; it would not be signed.
If we do not pass it by February 1, three things can happen. Number one, our intelligence community would not be able to go up on new terrorist targets identified. Number two, it might make it far more difficult to follow a fast-moving terrorist plot. And number three, we might well lose the cooperation of any carriers, communication carriers who are cooperating with us. That's why we need to get it passed. We do not need to wait, cannot wait on a 30- day extension. We need to move quickly and get it done, and I hope we can get it done with a very short extension once we get agreement on how to proceed. We've offered the other side a number of different options. We're still waiting to hear from them how they want to proceed.
SEN. KYL: Thank you, Leader and Kit.
The only thing I would add is, remember last week after the judiciary alternative to the Intelligence Committee bill was defeated, remember it was defeated almost 2 to 1. I believe the vote was 60 to 36. So there was a pretty clear indication of where the Senate needed to go, but then there was a suggestion by some on the other side, well we'll just take each individual piece of the judiciary committee bill and bring that to the floor.
And that's the problem that Senator Bond is talking about. It would take way too long. It begins to -- it's just death by a thousand cuts. And at the end of the day, you're not going to end up with a strong bipartisan package, but something that's going to be probably not something the president could end up supporting in any event.
Time is of the essence here, and that's why we do need to move forward quickly. We've offered to consider amendments by the other side, but clearly we have to get moving with this and find a path to move it forward to conclude the work prior to the time that Congress leaves here for the February recess.
SEN. MCCONNELL: We'll take a couple of questions.
Q Do you believe you have enough support from your side to block either the Baucus bill or some other great idea the Democrats have -- (off mike) -- stimulus package?
SEN. MCCONNELL: Yeah, we had a -- we've been having, over the last week or so, good discussions about the House package, a possible Senate package, the way forward. None of this has been completely sorted out, but I do think I can safely say that a significant majority of my conference thinks that Speaker Pelosi and Congressman Boehner did a pretty good job and are persuaded that this is one of those rare instances in which we ought to rise above ourselves and do something quickly. And as you all know from covering the Senate, the way you do something quickly is take up a bill passed by one body and pass it and send it to the president for signature.
So I think the need for speed, the importance of bipartisanship in reassuring the markets and the American people are pretty persuasive arguments to my members. Exactly how we end up going forward in detail, I wouldn't want to discuss with you anyway, but you get the drift in terms of where I think a majority of our members are.
(Cross talk.)
Q Would you vote against it?
Q (Off mike.) Have you (told any ?) of your members about maybe doing unemployment benefit extension -- (off mike)? And how are you dealing with those -- (off mike)?
SEN. MCCONNELL: Yeah, I wouldn't want to get into all the various discussions we've had.
Members can speak for themselves, so I don't need to characterize their point of view on a variety of different items, and that's one of them.
At the risk of being redundant, the important thing here is to see if we can -- to get it done quickly, do it on a largely bipartisan basis. And the process for going forward is through many different options, and I'm certainly not going to characterize my members' views on different pieces of either package.
Q But Mr. McConnell, a majority --
Q (Off mike) -- possibility that you might expect action on that type of legislation later on? And certainly that's one of the things Speaker Pelosi just spoke about. If you don't do it now, do it later.
SEN. MCCONNELL: I'm just concerned about the immediate challenge. Who knows what will be considered the rest of the year on this or other subjects?
(Cross talk.)
Q Is it possible that you could get 60 votes -- (off mike) -- if you were to call cloture on the House-passed measure --
SEN. MCCONNELL: Yeah, I'm not going to play out today the various parliamentary options. I laid out what I think the goal of most Republicans is. Exactly how we get there -- I'm not prepared to discuss that.
Q But Senator McConnell, what assurance --
SEN. MCCONNELL: I'm going to take one more, if there is one.
Q What assurances are going people like Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins and John Sununu, who have come out and said, "We want various things on this package"? I mean, can you give them any assurances that they --
SEN. MCCONNELL: Yeah, I think if you have any questions of individual members of my conference about how they may feel about various parts of this, feel free to ask them.
Q No, I'm asking you, what assurances do you --
SEN. MCCONNELL: I know what you're asking me, and I -- you hear what I'm telling you. (Chuckles.)
Q Senator McConnell?
SEN. MCCONNELL: Yeah?
Q Are you prepared, if you can't reach an agreement on amendments regarding FISA, to let it expire, or are you confident an agreement will be reached before then?
SEN. MCCONNELL: Well, the main thing we need to do is finish the bill. And then we can talk about some kind of short-term extension. We know it will not be 30 days. The president will not sign a 30-day extension. But the most important thing for us to do right now is to get the bill out of the Senate. We've got plenty of time to do that. We've been dealing with this for six months. And then we can talk about what kind of extension the president might be willing to sign, which would give the House an opportunity to respond to the Senate- passed bill.
Thanks, everybody.
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