Rand Paul, who spoke with the president about the surveillance bill, predicted that there might be more theatrics ahead, speculating that Trump would be “horrified” if the Senate prevented a vote on his amendment. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Surveillance bill survives last-minute drama, clearing key hurdle

A hotly debated surveillance bill Tuesday night moved one step closer to a final vote, barely clearing a key procedural Senate hurdle despite bipartisan opposition that nearly scuttled the vote.

The 60-38 vote to invoke cloture on the legislation — which would extend the powerful spying tools authorized under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — moves to limit debate over the proposal and sets up lawmakers for a final vote Wednesday or Thursday.


The House passed the bill last week, putting it on a path to potentially hit the president’s desk by the end of the week, when the FISA powers expire. The White House has said it will sign the bill.

But the proceedings were not without considerable drama.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced earlier in the day he would oppose the bill because of parliamentary moves Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made last week to limit debate and amendments, describing the process as “too quick for too much.”

Senate GOP leaders knew that Schumer’s decision meant the vote would be a nail-biter.

“When Sen. Schumer shifted, it was inevitable that it would be close,” Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who has led the charge to extend the FISA statute, told POLITICO after the vote. “If you look at the history of intelligence programs, they’re always close.”

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In addition, a bipartisan group of civil liberty-minded lawmakers — including Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a potential 2020 presidential contender — vowed to filibuster the legislation because they believe its revisions are inadequate and hope to force a vote on an alternative renewal bill. Their preferred measure would impose a rigorous warrant requirement for any federal agency seeking to search for Americans' information in the NSA's 702 database.

The opposition nearly derailed Senate GOP leaders’ planned path for the bill.

The vote, which started around 5:45 p.m., dragged on for over an hour, a rarity in the Senate, before stalling at 58-38. Ultimately, both sides’ hopes rested on Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and John Kennedy (R-La.).

“I don’t like the fact that we’re not allowed to consider amendments,” Kennedy told reporters after the vote. “I don’t like that at all.”

The two lawmakers shuffled between a huddled group of 702 critics — which included Wyden, Paul and libertarian-leaning Republicans Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah — and GOP leadership. For an extended period of time, McConnell stood alone, watching while the two holdouts discussed the issue with their colleagues.

“There was a lot of arm-twisting, and we think there was not any torture that we know of that happened,” Paul jokingly told reporters. “It was mental duress, I believe.”

Eventually, both Kennedy and McCaskill voted to move the bill forward, allowing it to clear the required filibuster-proof threshold of 60 votes.

“I was undecided when I walked on the floor, but the program expires Friday and I don’t want to play with fire on this,” Kennedy said, declining to detail his conversations on the floor. “This is an important program. I was always going to vote for the program. My concern was the process.”

Kennedy also said he voted "yes" to show the public that Congress can operate functionally and move legislation.

“The American people are singularly unimpressed with what’s happened in Washington, D.C., over the last week,” he said. “The average American is asking himself or herself that they didn’t know that ‘The Jerry Springer Show’ was in syndication. We need to get this back headed in the right direction. That’s why I did what I did.”

The outcome left opponents visibly frustrated.

“To me, what happened tonight is the Senate voted to rubber-stamp a program over which most senators have not fulfilled their constitutional responsibilities,” Wyden told reporters after walking off the floor.

“I think it’s just a surrender of our constitutional obligations,” he added. “So when senators talk about oversight, I think people are going to say, ‘Where were you tonight?’”

The unexpected spectacle is the latest surprising twist in the winding path congressional leaders have taken to try and extend the 702 statute, which has involved months of hearings, closed-door negotiations, draft after draft of competing proposals and the occasional out-of-left-field comment from the president.

Last week, just hours before the House was set to vote on the bill, President Donald Trump injected chaos into the proceedings, sending out a tweet indicating the 702 programs had been used to spy on him and his staff during and after the 2016 presidential election. The tweet caused some on-the-fence Republicans to consider withdrawing their support and sent GOP leaders scrambling to phone the White House and get Trump to reverse course. Two hours later, the president followed up with another tweet expressing support for the bill, insisting he had addressed his concerns via directives he had given the intelligence community.

Republican leaders also had to fight back an insurgent, bipartisan House coalition that nearly garnered enough support for an alternative FISA renewal statute that included the strict warrant requirement.

But in the end, Tuesday night’s vote marked another key victory for national security hawks, who have been ceding ground to privacy advocates since government contractor Edward Snowden leaked a cache of documents in 2013 that exposed the massive underbelly of the government's surveillance apparatus — including the 702 programs.

Still, Paul, who spoke with Trump last week about the bill, predicted that there might be more theatrics ahead, speculating that Trump would be “horrified” if the Senate prevented a vote on his amendment, which it did Tuesday night.

“These are fights that you very rarely win on the first round,” Wyden added. “We’re going to continue. It’s not as if we disappear.”

Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.

