Today, the House considered a bill to extend three provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act until 8 December. The bill was considered under the “suspension of the rules” procedure, meaning a 2/3 vote was required for passage. Since, as happened, I expected a number of Democrats to vote for it, I was ready to write a post blasting “Tea Party” Republicans for being hypocrites about government intrusion.
But as it turns out, not all of them are hypocrites. (At least not on this issue.) 26 Republicans joined with 122 Democrats to bring down the extension, 277-148. While this probably doesn’t kill the extension completely, it does mean that Republican leaders will probably have to allow a full House debate on it. (Which means a guaranteed Democratic amendment—yay motion to recommit.) Or it means that they’ll twist a few arms to get their supermajority. We’ll see.
I’m also highly amused by the failure of the Republican whip team on this bill. I wasn’t expecting a bill like this to come to the floor without the votes it needed to pass. (And judging by the length of time the vote was held open, the failure was not intentional.) Republican whips: learn to count votes better! Alternatively, don’t—it it will make the next two years much funnier.
Full list of Republican “no” votes over the fold:
- Amash
- Bartlett
- Bishop (UT)
- Broun (GA)
- Campbell
- Duncan (TN)
- Fitzpatrick
- Gibson
- Graves (GA)
- Heller
- Hultgren
- Johnson (IL)
- Jones
- Kingston
- Labrador
- Mack
- Marchant
- McClintock
- Paul
- Rehberg
- Roe (TN)
- Rohrabacher
- Schilling
- Schweikert
- Woodall
- Young (AK)
[...] the Capitol this week. Tomorrow, the House looks to finish up the USA PATRIOT Act extension that I mentioned last week. Unfortunately, the bill has a large enough majority that it’s hard to see it [...]
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