On the heels of the House victory in passing solid FISA legislation in defiance of Bush and AT&T, the picture for the legislation looks murky. If you can believe Politico (and sometimes that is a admittedly a stretch), there might not be further action on the bill this year.
After months of debate on a controversial electronic surveillance law, Congress heads into a two-week spring break deadlocked with the White House on the issue, raising the possibility that resolution could be delayed until after the November election....
House Democratic leaders stiff-armed Bush, however, arguing that existing laws can adequately protect the country while they deliberate the FISA overhaul. And now, having stared down the president on a key national security issue and enjoyed a week of largely positive headlines, congressional aides and outside experts say there is less of a sense of urgency surrounding the issue....
After allowing a temporary electronic surveillance law to expire on Feb. 15, there are no hard deadlines to meet until August, when the surveillance orders authorizing the government to spy on potential terrorists expire.
"I don’t know if there is a dire need to get it done tomorrow," said one Senate Democratic aide. "Obviously we would like to see a resolution on this, but that is really hard to do when the House is voting on legislation that won’t pass the Senate and Republicans won’t even come to the table."
The Senate has a stacked deck of issues to push in April and May, including addressing the housing crisis and the reverberations it's had through the entire economy. They're also expecting another push on Iraq, with Petraeus scheduled to testify in early April and another defense authorization bill looming.
In the meantime, however, we can't count on the issue just going away. Your federal representatives should be rattling around your area in the next couple of weeks. Find out where they have town meetings, or schedule appointments with them while they're home, and let them know that their constituents are paying attention to the issue.
