Rep. Justin Amash's amendment would restrict the NSA's ability to collect some data. House to vote on NSA data collection

Having reluctantly agreed to 15 minutes of debate, the House Republican establishment came into Wednesday working overtime to contain a floor amendment that seeks to rein in the National Security Agency’s authority to collect private call records and metadata on telephone customers in the U.S.

The White House and NSA’s top brass are willing allies for the GOP, all matched against a 33-year-old Michigan conservative, Rep. Justin Amash, who has kept up a running commentary on his Twitter account and loves the limelight of a grassroots fight.


A vote is scheduled late Wednesday as part of a lumbering $512.5 billion defense appropriations bill, which includes funding for intelligence agencies. And it will be the first real test of political sentiment since former systems analyst Edward Snowden leaked documents that revealed the NSA program.

Democrats are themselves divided, but the fight is foremost one that reflects a larger split among Republicans.

On a 226-194 vote Tuesday, the leadership used its muscle to adopt a rule that will contain debate on a second sensitive issue: military aid to anti-government forces in Syria. But Amash had enough support to get his amendment made in order, albeit with just limited time and at the very end of the process before final passage.

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At one level, his tactics are a classic example of how appropriations bills become battlegrounds for bigger issues. Sen. John McCain’s famous post 9/11 anti-torture amendment was enacted as part of a similar defense spending bill. But critics contend Amash is a bull-in-the-china shop here and a phalanx of Republican chairmen are urging their colleagues to allow more time for the House Intelligence Committee to respond with changes to the NSA program.

“We are committed to assisting all of our colleagues in reviewing this program, and we will continue to develop additional protections,” read a letter circulated Tuesday by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and five other full committee chairmen. “Any such changes ought to proceed through a regular legislative process so the effects can be understood and debated fully.”

These arguments were echoed in a statement Tuesday evening from White House press secretary Jay Carney describing the Amash amendment as a “blunt approach” and “not the product of an informed, open or deliberative process.”

Amash fired back with Twitter postings passed along by his office:

“#NSA’s unconstitutional spying on ALL Americans was ‘not the product of an informed, open, or deliberative process.’ It must be stopped now,” read one in response to the committee chairmen.

A second played off Carney’s statement: “Pres Obama opposes my #NSA amendment, but American people overwhelmingly support it. Will your Rep stand with the WH or the Constitution?”

The NSA drama has overshadowed the equally important but less colorful budget stakes in the same defense bill.

Indeed, the measure could be cut down by as much as $54 billion by the end of this year if Congress and the White House don’t reach agreement before then on sequestration. But House Republicans has chosen to plunge ahead just as Senate Democrats are doing the same this week with a $54 billion transportation and housing bill also in denial of the automatic cuts.

That Senate measure, in fact, cleared its first Senate hurdle Tuesday, riding a wave of bipartisan support on a 73-36 roll call. And in the larger context of this summer’s budget wars, the two spending bills on Tuesday might have been ships passing in the night, each defiant but neither equipped to deal with the dangers ahead.

For each the budget math is undeniable. And that won’t change without a deal between Congress and the White House to lift the threat of sequestration.

The Senate measure is based on a Democratic topline number of $1.058 trillion for the coming fiscal year, more than $90 billion higher than what can be sustained under the Budget Control Act if sequestration remains in place.

At the same time, the House has budgeted $552 billion for defense — including the Pentagon’s portion. But that also will come crashing down next winter when the BCA kicks back in with defense caps of $498 billion — or $54 billion less than House Republicans propose.

The Senate is on a “precarious path,” warned Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee. Nonetheless, Democrats opted to proceed, betting that the meat-and-potatoes transportation and housing measure represents their best shot at winning over GOP allies.

In the short run at least, this gamble paid off Tuesday. Despite Shelby’s vocal resistance, 19 Republicans joined Democrats to cut off debate on the motion to take up the bill. Many are sure to fall off as the votes get tougher. But the outcome was a victory for Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) and the bill’s manager, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who also chairs the Senate Budget Committee.

“It’s not politics, it’s physics,” Mikulski said, urging her colleagues to support greater investments in the nation’s infrastructure. “This isn’t about politics — it’s about our country,” said Murray, echoing the theme.

Little was so bipartisan about the House rule that sets the terms for debate on the long-delayed Pentagon bill.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) prides himself on allowing open debate on appropriations bills. So once the decision was made to tighten up defense, the leadership rushed to promise it will be open season on the next bill up: the House version of the same transportation and housing measure in the Senate.

The political twist wasn’t lost on House Democrats, who argue the GOP is pumping up the Pentagon budget — in defiance of the sequester law — at the expense of domestic programs. In fact, the House bill provides almost $10 billion less than the Senate version for transportation and housing programs.

“There’s an irony here,” said Rep. David Price (D-N.C.). “Tacking an open rule on an inadequate domestic spending bill in order to win support for a restrictive rule for a bill whose higher allocation comes at the expense of our domestic priorities. There is an irony to that. I doubt that it’s lost on any of us.”

As approved, the rule will allow 30 minutes of debate on two amendments seeking to narrow the ability of the NSA to collect private call records and metadata on telephone customers in the U.S. But the leadership permits just 20 minutes on the question of U.S. military aid to rebel forces in Syria. And the rule excludes the most far-reaching of the Syria amendments — one barring any aid until fully authorized by Congress.

Despite its own misgivings about the aid, the House Intelligence Committee leadership appears to have wanted to restrict floor debate on the issue — now largely within the panel’s jurisdiction. And for Republicans, it is an awkward situation, after so many prominent members of the party pressured President Barack Obama to intercede more.

Rep. Chris Gibson (R-N.Y.), an Army veteran of Iraq and chief sponsor of the excluded amendment, later voted against the rule. His Democratic co-sponsor, Vermont Rep. Peter Welch, spoke angrily on the floor.

“I don’t want this Congress to back into a policy,” Welch said. “Vote yes, or vote no — but to have no debate, to once again stumble into a military action.”

As much as Syria is the new battlefront, the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan hangs over the defense debate as well.

To a striking degree, lawmakers are targeting American aid to the Karzai government and Afghan security forces to fund priorities closer to home. An amendment to cut $79 million from the Afghanistan Infrastructure Fund passed the House by a 2-1 margin Tuesday evening. Still pending was a much more severe proposal taking $2.6 billion from the Afghanistan Security Forces Fund to offset civilian furloughs in the U.S.

Some of the same frustration spilled over to a Senate Appropriations Committee meeting Tuesday on the State Department and foreign aid budget.

Responding to reports that new taxes and duties are being imposed on the transport of U.S. property out of Afghanistan, senators added language that said U.S. aid to the Afghanistan government would be cut $5 for every $1 in such levies.

“It’s a subtle message, but I think they’ll understand,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the bill’s manager.

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