Rick Scott surfaced in the shutdown fight as President Donald Trump pushed to tie FISA renewal to the SAVE America Act, and John Thune questioned whether that link could work. The dispute lands with the fiscal year ending at 11:59:59 p.m. ET on Sept. 30 and Congress heading into a compressed schedule.
Chad Pergram reported that Trump wants the extension of the FISA anti-terror surveillance law coupled with the voter ID measure. Thune, who represents S.D., expressed doubt about the feasibility of that approach.
John Thune and FISA
Thune’s objection matters because the link would force Members of Congress to resolve two separate issues in one package: surveillance authority and voter identification. Chuck Schumer of N.Y. called Trump’s move “deeply reckless,” putting the disagreement on record before the House and Senate are expected to lose more floor time in August.
The calendar is already tight. The House official calendar runs through July 2, the House and Senate will likely be out of session for all but a day in August, and Congress is expected to return in September before going out again until after Election Day.
House calendar through July 2
That schedule leaves little room if leaders decide to use the end of the work period to test whether the House will send lawmakers home until September. The chamber is out while the Senate is meeting this week, which keeps the two sides on different clocks as the shutdown deadline approaches.
Last year’s comprehensive government shutdown lasted 43 days, and Tom Cole, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, wants something that the article did not finish describing. The practical question now is whether Republicans and Democrats can settle on a spending path before the fiscal year ends, or whether the FISA-SAVE America Act dispute becomes part of a larger shutdown fight.
September and midterms
By September and after September and before the midterms, the remaining session time will be short. If leaders cannot narrow the disagreement over FISA and SAVE, Members of Congress will enter the fall with less time to avoid another funding lapse and less margin to separate the surveillance fight from the rest of the agenda.
