cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/58562989
The House of Representatives is set to vote Wednesday on renewing a spy power that grants the Trump administration warrantless access to thousands of Americans’ communications.
While uniting against President Donald Trump on many fronts, Democrats are split on what to do over the domestic spying power — and the party’s leadership isn’t giving much guidance, according to a congressional notice obtained by The Intercept.
In the notice laying out leadership’s advice on bills up for a vote this week, Democratic Whip Katherine Clark simply explained that the relevant top committee leaders were split. House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Jim Himes supports a clean reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, while Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin wants further reforms.
Clark gave straight up-or-down recommendations on many other pieces of legislation, but not the spying law.
With leadership silent, progressive activists are trying to step into the void to pressure members. They say Trump’s disregard for the rule of law in his second term means that representatives should only vote for the law with reforms. Government officials have engaged a pattern of abuses at the Justice Department.
Centrists on two key committees, on the other hand, say that modest changes enacted in 2024 went far enough and Congress should give Trump the so-called “clean” reauthorization he has requested.
With Republicans themselves divided, the margin within the Democratic caucus could prove crucial.
Rather than advising members how to vote, however, Democratic leaders is stepping aside. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., has said that he personally supports reforms but has not signaled that he will pressure his caucus. (Jeffries’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
Fascist collaboration.
Why do we have trump? One reason is fox news. Another is Elmo and assorted billionaires / oil industry. Another is reflected in the comments here.
I’d like to say these are exactly the kinds of comments I was posting in the early 2000s. Although it doesn’t seem like it, the Democrats have improved - gotten more progressive, more vocal about it, and in other ways. And yes, they’re still woefully behind where we want them to be.
The system exists to be changed, without violence, and it has been done many times in the past. Such that we take those seismic changes for granted now.
People who inevitably promote non-voting are like people who argue against eating. Yes, there are other ways to sustain life but none of them are readily available to the staff at the Try-N-Sav, much less practical. This is the method we have now. And it can - and more often than it gets credit for, it does - work.