As we reported earlier, Republican Justin Amash (MI-03) and Democrat John Conyers (MI-13) jointly introduced an amendment to the Pentagon spending bill now going through the House that would bar the NSA from spending any money to perform surveillance on any citizen who is not already the subject of an investigation.

From the fact sheet at Amash’s site (my emphasis and some reparagraphing):

Amash Amendment #100: Stop NSA’s Blanket Surveillance of Americans On Wednesday, the House will have its first floor debate over NSA’s blanket collection of Americans’ telephone records. The Amash-Conyers amendment—and only the Amash-Conyers amendment—ends the indiscriminate collection of those records. The amendment limits the government’s collection of records under Section 215 of the Patriot Act to those records that pertain to a person who is subject to an investigation under that provision. … The Amash-Conyers amendment ends NSA’s blanket collection of Americans’ telephone records. It does this by requiring the FISA court under Sec. 215 to order the production of records that pertain only to a person under investigation. The amendment has three important practical effects. First, it ends the mass surveillance of Americans. The government no longer is authorized under Sec. 215 to hold a pool of metadata on every phone call of every American. Second, the amendment permits the government to continue to acquire business records and other “tangible things” that are actually related to an authorized counterterrorism investigation. The government still has access to this tool under the amendment, but it’s forced to comply with the intent of Congress when it passed Sec. 215. Third, the amendment imposes more robust judicial oversight of NSA’s surveillance. The FISA court will be involved every time NSA searches Americans’ records, and the court will have a substantive, statutory standard to apply to make sure the NSA does not violate Americans’ civil liberties. …

Seems straightforward. The text of the amendment is here (pdf). The amendment is cleverly designed to be ruled in order by the House Parliamentarian whether the Speaker wants it brought to the floor or not.

To counter, Boehner and Pelosi brought another amendment — sponsored by Mike Pompeo, as it turns out, instead of Rich Nugent, as originally reported — to provide a “fig-leaf” place to vote for members who needed to sell the appearance of caring about privacy. That passed 409-12. Hurray for the twelve, though a Yes vote was meaningless by design, so no harm done. (Why Pompeo instead of Nugent? You’ll see below.)

Naturally, Boehner hated the Amash-Conyers amendment. Naturally, so did Obama. As the New York Times put it (h/t Glenn Greenwald; emphasis his):

Conservative Republicans leery of what they see as Obama administration abuses of power teamed up with liberal Democrats long opposed to intrusive intelligence programs. The Obama administration made common cause with the House Republican leadership to try to block it.

So there, lovers of liberty; it’s heroes and villains time.

Who are the heroes? Who are the villains?

I haven’t analyzed this data yet, but I want to put it before you, since it matters. Anyone who voted Yes on Amash-Conyers, for whatever reason, is a hero. Anyone who voted No is a villain.

Here are the votes, via the House clerk’s website. Republicans in Roman (standard) type. Democrats in Italic type. Independents are underlined. I’ve added some preliminary bolding.

Vote Summary

Ayes Noes PRES NV Republican 94 134 6 Democratic 111 83 6 Independent TOTALS 205 217 12

Yes Votes on Amash-Conyers (the Heroes)

Amash

Amodei

Bachus

Barton

Bass

Becerra

Bentivolio

Bishop (UT)

Black

Blackburn

Blumenauer

Bonamici

Brady (PA)

Braley (IA)

Bridenstine

Broun (GA)

Buchanan

Burgess

Capps

Capuano

Cárdenas

Carson (IN)

Cartwright

Cassidy

Chabot

Chaffetz

Chu

Cicilline

Clarke

Clay

Cleaver

Clyburn

Coffman

Cohen

Connolly

Conyers

Courtney

Cramer

Crowley

Cummings

Daines

Davis, Danny

Davis, Rodney

DeFazio

DeGette

DeLauro

DelBene

DeSantis

DesJarlais

Deutch

Dingell

Doggett

Doyle

Duffy

Duncan (SC)

Duncan (TN)

Edwards

Ellison

Eshoo

Farenthold

Farr

Fattah

Fincher

Fitzpatrick

Fleischmann

Fleming

Fudge

Gabbard

Garamendi Gardner

Garrett

Gibson

Gohmert

Gosar

Gowdy

Graves (GA)

Grayson

Green, Gene

Griffin (AR)

Griffith (VA)

Grijalva

Hahn

Hall

Harris

Hastings (FL)

Holt

Honda

Huelskamp

Huffman

Huizenga (MI)

Hultgren

Jeffries

Jenkins

Johnson (OH)

Jones

Jordan

Keating

Kildee

Kingston

Labrador

LaMalfa

Lamborn

Larson (CT)

Lee (CA)

Lewis

Loebsack

Lofgren

Lowenthal

Lujan Grisham (NM)

Luján, Ben Ray (NM)

Lummis

Lynch

Maffei

Maloney, Carolyn

Marchant

Massie

Matsui

McClintock

McCollum

McDermott

McGovern

McHenry

McMorris Rodgers

Meadows

Mica

Michaud

Miller, Gary

Miller, George

Moore

Moran

Mullin

Mulvaney

Nadler

Napolitano

Neal

Nolan

Nugent

O’Rourke Owens

Pascrell

Pastor (AZ)

Pearce

Perlmutter

Perry

Petri

Pingree (ME)

Pocan

Poe (TX)

Polis

Posey

Price (GA)

Radel

Rahall

Rangel

Ribble

Rice (SC)

Richmond

Roe (TN)

Rohrabacher

Ross

Rothfus

Roybal-Allard

Rush

Salmon

Sánchez, Linda T.

Sanchez, Loretta

Sanford

Sarbanes

Scalise

Schiff

Schrader

Schweikert

Scott (VA)

Sensenbrenner

Serrano

Shea-Porter

Sherman

Smith (MO)

Smith (NJ)

Southerland

Speier

Stewart

Stockman

Swalwell (CA)

Takano

Thompson (MS)

Thompson (PA)

Tierney

Tipton

Tonko

Tsongas

Vela

Velázquez

Walz

Waters

Watt

Waxman

Weber (TX)

Welch

Williams

Wilson (SC)

Yarmuth

Yoder

Yoho

Young (AK)

No Votes on Amash-Conyers (the Villains)

Aderholt

Alexander

Andrews

Bachmann

Barber

Barr

Barrow (GA)

Benishek

Bera (CA)

Bilirakis

Bishop (GA)

Bishop (NY)

Boehner

Bonner

Boustany

Brady (TX)

Brooks (AL)

Brooks (IN)

Brown (FL)

Brownley (CA)

Bucshon

Butterfield

Calvert

Camp

Cantor

Capito

Carney

Carter

Castor (FL)

Castro (TX)

Cole

Collins (GA)

Collins (NY)

Conaway

Cook

Cooper

Costa

Cotton

Crawford

Crenshaw

Cuellar

Culberson

Davis (CA)

Delaney

Denham

Dent

Diaz-Balart

Duckworth

Ellmers

Engel

Enyart

Esty

Flores

Forbes

Fortenberry

Foster

Foxx

Frankel (FL)

Franks (AZ)

Frelinghuysen

Gallego

Garcia

Gerlach

Gibbs

Gingrey (GA)

Goodlatte

Granger

Graves (MO)

Green, Al

Grimm

Guthrie

Gutiérrez

Hanabusa Hanna

Harper

Hartzler

Hastings (WA)

Heck (NV)

Heck (WA)

Hensarling

Higgins

Himes

Hinojosa

Holding

Hoyer

Hudson

Hunter

Hurt

Israel

Issa

Jackson Lee

Johnson (GA)

Johnson, E. B.

Johnson, Sam

Joyce

Kaptur

Kelly (IL)

Kelly (PA)

Kennedy

Kilmer

Kind

King (IA)

King (NY)

Kinzinger (IL)

Kirkpatrick

Kline

Kuster

Lance

Langevin

Lankford

Larsen (WA)

Latham

Latta

Levin

Lipinski

LoBiondo

Long

Lowey

Lucas

Luetkemeyer

Maloney, Sean

Marino

Matheson

McCarthy (CA)

McCaul

McIntyre

McKeon

McKinley

McNerney

Meehan

Meeks

Meng

Messer

Miller (FL)

Miller (MI)

Murphy (FL)

Murphy (PA)

Neugebauer

Noem

Nunes

Nunnelee

Olson

Palazzo

Paulsen

Payne

Pelosi Peters (CA)

Peters (MI)

Peterson

Pittenger

Pitts

Pompeo

Price (NC)

Quigley

Reed

Reichert

Renacci

Rigell

Roby

Rogers (AL)

Rogers (KY)

Rogers (MI)

Rooney

Ros-Lehtinen

Roskam

Royce

Ruiz

Runyan

Ruppersberger

Ryan (OH)

Ryan (WI)

Schakowsky

Schneider

Schwartz

Scott, Austin

Scott, David

Sessions

Sewell (AL)

Shimkus

Shuster

Simpson

Sinema

Sires

Slaughter

Smith (NE)

Smith (TX)

Smith (WA)

Stivers

Stutzman

Terry

Thompson (CA)

Thornberry

Tiberi

Titus

Turner

Upton

Valadao

Van Hollen

Vargas

Veasey

Visclosky

Wagner

Walberg

Walden

Walorski

Wasserman Schultz

Webster (FL)

Wenstrup

Westmoreland

Whitfield

Wilson (FL)

Wittman

Wolf

Womack

Woodall

Young (FL)

Young (IN)

Not Voting (the Otherwise-Engaged)

Barletta

Beatty

Bustos

Campbell Coble

Herrera Beutler

Horsford

McCarthy (NY) Negrete McLeod

Pallone

Rokita

Schock

The leaders and staff of the Congressional Progressive Caucus whipped for the amendment. You’ll see CPC members through the Yes list (and a number of them in the No list as well, like Schakowsky and Kaptur). Becerra, Clyburn and Crowley broke with the rest of the Dem leaders to vote Yes. Pelosi, Hoyer, Israel, Larsen, Van Hollen and Wasserman Schultz are in the walk-of-shame list, of course.

There are also some hardcore wingers in the Yes list. I bolded Nugent’s name, since he was supposed to be the author of the phoney-baloney amendment that Pompeo ended up fronting for. Looks like Nugent didn’t like the phoney, or the baloney, after all. Sensenbrenner (a Yes) is one of the men credited with authoring the Patriot Act.

I’ll analyze this more thoroughly later and offer suggestions for whom to call, with phone numbers in the post. I’ll be especially interested to see how this list squares with this one, which we offered earlier.

If you want to get a head start, House phone numbers are here. Go for it; you don’t need permission to pick up the phone.

This is far from over. Most of DC is shocked; good.

GP

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