Defying the White House, Republican lawmakers and conservative members of their own party, House Democrats chose last week to let a temporary electronic surveillance bill expire rather than surrender to threats of possible danger to national security.

The day after the Senate passed a six-year overhaul of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA, PL 95-511), House leaders tried to push through a 21-day extension of a short-term law (PL 110-55, PL 110-182) that was scheduled to run out on Feb. 16. But Republicans and enough members of their own caucus blocked that effort, leaving Democrats facing the president head-on in a legislative version of the game of “chicken.”

B o x S c o r e Bills: HR 3773 — To overhaul for six years the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (PL 95-511); HR 5349 — To extend for 21 days a temporary electronic surveillance law (PL 110-55, PL 110-182). Latest Action: Senate passed S 2248, 68-29, on Feb. 12, then substituted its text into HR 3773. House rejected HR 5349, 191-229, on Feb. 13. Next Likely Action: House-Senate negotiations on HR 3773. Reference: Senate debate, CQ Weekly, p. 392; 2007 legislation, p. 50; FISA, 1978 Almanac, p. 186.

Leaders of the House majority defended their decision to leave for the one-week Presidents Day recess without completing work on FISA legislation, saying they needed the extra time to reconcile differences between the Senate version of the bill (HR 3773) and the one the House passed in November.

“Is there an important reason to act? There is,” Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., said Feb. 14 in an impassioned floor speech. “Do we have every intention of acting? We do. But we will not be presented with a bill on Tuesday night and be asked to pass it on Wednesday afternoon without full and fair consideration. That is our duty; that is our responsibility; and that is what we will do.”

Republicans did everything they could to force the House to accept the Senate bill, even walking out of the chamber as a group at one point. President Bush castigated Democrats and said he would delay the start of a planned trip to Africa over the weekend if it would help quickly clear long-term legislation.

Reading a statement on the South Lawn of the White House on Feb. 14, Bush warned that if the temporary law expired without a new one in place, “our ability to find out who the terrorists are talking to, what they are saying and what they are planning will be compromised. It would be a mistake if the Congress were to allow this to happen.”

Hoyer responded that during the time it would take to negotiate a compromise between the two versions, the intelligence community would have all the tools it needed to defend against terror attacks, contrary to Republican accusations that the expiration of the temporary spying law — enacted in August — would create an intelligence gap.

“There is no urgency,” Hoyer said. “That claim is a claim made to stampede this House and the American people.”

At the urging of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, and the leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence panels met Feb. 15 to begin discussing their differences. Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., was back in his home state of Vermont.

The Senate on Feb. 12 passed a comprehensive overhaul of the ground rules for electronic surveillance after rejecting a series of amendments that could have turned the White House against the carefully negotiated measure. The vote for passage was 68-29, with 19 Democrats and one independent joining 48 Republicans in support of the bill. Not a single GOP senator voted against it. (Senate vote 20, p. 450)

After passing the FISA bill, the Senate called up the House-passed bill and substituted the text of its own measure (S 2248), returning HR 3773 to the other chamber. Earlier, senators had voted, 69-29, to limit further debate on the bill. (Senate vote 19, p. 450)

The legislation would revamp FISA to establish new rules for electronic surveillance designed to collect foreign intelligence when it involves communications on U.S. soil. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, working with the administration, assembled it in October.

One of the main sticking points between the House and Senate versions of the bill is over how the bill would authorize surveillance. The Senate measure would allow warrantless surveillance of foreign targets even if they were communicating with someone in the United States, much like President Bush’s program through the National Security Agency and the temporary spying law that expired over the weekend. But the secret court established under FISA would be able to approve procedures for such surveillance, and would have a greater role than under the temporary law.

The House bill would require the administration to apply to the FISA court for an order permitting spying on a large number of foreign targets that may be communicating with people in the United States.

An even more contentious debate has been over whether to provide retroactive legal immunity to companies being sued for their alleged assistance to the administration’s warrantless surveillance program. The Senate version of the bill would provide it; the House version would not.

Senate Democrats tried repeatedly to remove the immunity language from the bill but to no avail. Before passing the bill, the Senate rejected, 31-67, an amendment by Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., that sought to strike the immunity provision from the bill. (Senate vote 15, p. 449)

The closest Senate amendment vote last week came on a proposal by Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., to tighten language in the bill reaffirming that FISA is the “exclusive means” of conducting intelligence surveillance of Americans. The 57-41 vote was three votes short of the 60 required under a unanimous consent agreement governing consideration of amendments. (Senate vote 13, p. 449)

Feinstein, a member of the Senate Intelligence panel, said her language was designed to “prevent a chief executive, either now or in the future, from moving outside of this law.”

The temporary law enacted in August expired Feb. 1, so on Jan. 29 Congress cleared an extension of that law, keeping it alive until Feb. 16. Even though Bush said he would not sign another extension, House leaders offered a bill (HR 5349) that would give the law 21 more days.

That effort failed, 191-229, as every House Republican who voted joined with a group of 34 liberal and conservative Democratic defectors Feb. 13 to reject the bill. (House vote 54, p. 454)

“We need to address this and get it over with. I want us to vote on the Senate bill,” said Lincoln Davis, D-Tenn., one of 21 conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats who endorsed the Senate bill and several of whom voted against the short-term extension.

The defeat for Democratic leaders followed a parliamentary battle that raged all day on the floor. Earlier in the day they had closed ranks to kill, 222-196, a Republican move to replace the Democratic leaders’ short-term bill with the Senate bill. (House vote 53, p. 454)

Democrats blamed Republicans for the lapse of the August surveillance law, saying that if they saw it as endangering the country, they should have voted for the extension.

“The president says he won’t sign an extension,” Pelosi said. “That said to me the president knows he doesn’t need an extension. He knows he has the authority” to continue current wiretaps and to launch new ones with a FISA court order.

Republicans staged a walkout Feb. 14 to pressure Democrats into taking the Senate bill. The demonstration occurred before a floor vote on a rule (H Res 982) adopting a resolution (H Res 979) to cite White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers for contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with Judiciary Committee subpoenas. (Contempt resolution, p. 442)

“We have space on the calendar today for a politically charged fishing expedition, but no space for a bill that would protect the American people from terrorists who want to kill us,” Minority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, said.

Republicans spent the week raising the specter of a hobbled intelligence community if the temporary surveillance law expired and the Senate bill did not become law.

But legal experts say the implications of any expiration are mixed. They note that any spying orders already in place would remain in effect long after the temporary law lapses.

At the same time, most experts agree that the administration would have to go back to the secret FISA court to obtain warrants in cases where foreign-to-foreign communications are routed through the United States’ telecommunications infrastructure. That poses little immediate threat, they say, but if a backlog of warrant applications were to build, it could begin to cause problems.

Among experts in national security law, there is no agreement on whether telecommunications companies would continue to be compelled to comply with administration surveillance demands.

And because Bush administration officials have repeatedly claimed the president has all the authority he needs to conduct a surveillance program in the service of national security, some experts argue that the administration is likely to do as it pleases regardless of what happens in Congress.