Republicans Just Killed Their Own Bill

Divisions within the House Republican Conference continue to widen as 19 conservatives clashed with party leadership Wednesday, killing Speaker Mike Johnson’s proposal to advance reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in a 119-228 vote.

The embattled Speaker already faces the threat of losing his job after hard right Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia filed a motion to vacate on March 22—in response to Johnson passing a spending bill that averted a government shutdown—which she could trigger at any point to initiate a referendum on Johnson’s job.

Had today’s procedural vote to advance FISA reform passed, Congress would have moved closer toward retooling Section 702 of FISA, a provision allowing U.S. intelligence authorities to conduct warrantless surveillance on foreigners abroad. Johnson’s bill would have introduced new safeguards to Section 702 data and criminalized the use of backdoor loopholes to collect such data.

“[FISA] is an essential tool for keeping our country safe,” Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, a member of the Intelligence Committee, told Newsweek. “I’m open to looking at additional safeguards if they are needed, but I think there’s a lot of misunderstanding about FISA.”

Collins, a centrist dealmaker, has worked extensively on bipartisan agreements. As the top Republican on the Appropriations Committee, she helped Congress reach the spending agreement that averted a March shutdown but has put Johnson at risk of losing his job.

Opponents of the bill ultimately felt that the measure did not go far enough to protect Americans whose data can be collected and reviewed if they’re in communication with foreign nationals being surveilled. Its passage became further imperiled after former President Donald Trump posted: “KILL FISA, IT WAS ILLEGALLY USED AGAINST ME AND MANY OTHERS.”

“We’re here to stand up for the people who are tired of situation normal where the defense industrial complex, the intel community, they get to see all this stuff behind closed doors and tell us what they’re going to do,” Texas Congressman Chip Roy, Policy Chair of the hard right Freedom Caucus, told reporters following the vote.

Roy and other conservatives—many of whom belong to the Freedom Caucus—wanted Johnson to take up a bipartisan bill taken up by the House Judiciary Committee that went further in curbing the usage of data gathered through FISA and would require intelligence officials to seek a warrant before tapping data on Americans gathered through the program.

However, national security-minded members argued that requiring officials to seek a warrant would upend the program, with House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner of Ohio voicing that position.

Asked whether she believes a compromise can be struck between lawmakers on both sides of the FISA debate, Collins answered, “I don’t know.”