The House will vote Thursday on a three-week extension of a key surveillance program a day ahead of its expiration, Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday.
But leaders of both parties expect the measure to fail, risking a first-ever lapse of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as the House prepares to leave for recess until June 23.
The extension through July 2 is set to be debated Wednesday night under suspension of the rules, a fast-track House procedure that requires a two-thirds majority to pass.
But the vast majority of Democrats, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, say they will not support a punt so long as President Donald Trump stands by plans to appoint a close political ally with no national security experience as his acting director of national intelligence. There is also a small but stubborn group of GOP holdouts who would oppose any attempt to pass an extension under regular order procedures.
“I certainly hope that everyone will do the right thing, put politics aside, for a short-term extension,” Johnson said Wednesday. “We’re not asking for anything heroic here.”
Johnson’s announcement of the Thursday morning vote capped a confusing back-and-forth between the two chambers Wednesday. Less than an hour before, he had said in an interview that “the ball’s in the Senate’s court.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, in turn, said in an interview he expected the House would need to move first on a short-term extension.
“We’ll see kind of again what they can come up with over there,” Thune said.
But by Wednesday evening it was clear that regardless of which chamber voted first, the necessary bipartisan coalition to pass an extension simply did not exist.
Senate Democrats quickly poured cold water on the proposed three-week extension, citing Trump’s decision to double down Wednesday on plans to install housing official Bill Pulte as acting DNI.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), who helped negotiate a three-year extension that has been thrown into limbo, said Trump should name Aaron Lukas, the Senate-confirmed deputy director of the office, the acting director instead of Pulte to ease the path for a short-term patch.
“If he is the acting director during this short-term extension, that’s within the law, and I could be supportive,” Warner said of Lukas.
Should the House leave for its recess after voting Thursday as planned, the Section 702 spy program allowing for warrantless surveillance of foreign sources would lapse for at least a week as World Cup games begin in multiple U.S. cities and the nationwide America 250 celebration approaches. The White House has been prepping an executive order that may cover some aspects of the intelligence data collection in the meantime, according to senior Republicans.
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