FISA

Floor Speech

FISA -- (Senate - January 29, 2008)

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I would like to ask the Senator if he could recap for me two votes that I think are significant. There was a vote taken as to whether the Judiciary Committee version would be accepted. A cloture vote was taken, if I am not mistaken, and it was defeated. If I am not mistaken, that was last week. And if I am not mistaken as well, yesterday, when Senator McConnell offered a cloture motion to promote his point of view, there were only 48 votes in support of it out of the 60 that were necessary--4 from our side of the aisle, 44 from the Republican side.

It seems to me we need to put our heads together to work this out. Extending this law so that there is no damage or hazard to our country is a reasonable way to do this. We now have reached a point where amendments may be considered and voted on, and then we will be in a spot where we can pass a version in the Senate, send it to conference, and work out our differences. But I can't understand how the President and the Republican leader can come to the floor and blame us for the expiration of the law if we are offering an extension of the law and they keep refusing.

Mr. REID. Mr. President, I say to my friend, the distinguished Senator from Illinois, I personally have been to the floor and offered on many occasions to extend the time. We could all see the train wreck coming, and we believed that it was necessary to extend this law.

I don't know--I say very positively to my friend from Illinois and everyone who can hear me--I don't know if we can work anything out on these amendments. I don't know. On the title I aspect of it, one Senator has six amendments. I am sure--he has always been a reasonable person--he wouldn't have to offer that many. He has always been very good about time agreements. But there are 10 or 12 amendments to title I. Then there are three we have with title II dealing with some form of immunity.

But I repeat to my friend, Democrats believe the program should continue. We are willing to say, OK, let it continue as it is now in effect. A lot of people don't like that. We are saying go ahead and let it continue. Certainly, there could be a significant majority of Senators--Democrats and Republicans--who will support that. And the issue is immunity.

I reverse the question and ask my friend from Illinois, should we not have a nice debate on immunity and find out how the Congress feels about what the President feels is important? That is how this country has worked for all these years. So extend this and do it until we have a new President--Democrat or Republican, man or woman, whoever it might be--and in the meantime have a decision made as to whether there should be retroactive immunity.

Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. REID. I will, but let my friend from Illinois answer that question first.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I say to the majority leader, it appears now that the Senate has to work its will. When the Judiciary Committee proposal was suggested, it didn't pass. When the Senator from Kentucky offered his cloture motion for his side, it didn't even have a majority vote. It had 48 votes in support, let alone the 60 that were required. I don't think we can expect to impose our will on this body. The Senate has to work its will. We could have considered a lot of amendments in the time we have lost so far in debate.

I say to the majority leader, how can we be held responsible for this law expiring if it is the Republicans who opposed extending the law? You have offered repeatedly to let them extend the law. They have said no.

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