By Orrin Hatch
It has almost become a cliche over the past few years to observe that compromise and bipartisanship are in short supply in Washington. In fact, some presidential candidates in the current race have based their entire campaigns on claims that they are the ones who will finally "bring the country together" or "change the tone" in our nation's capital.
As appealing as these notions are, the reality is that the unfortunate trend toward divisiveness and partisanship continues. However, there have been some notable exceptions.
One is the bill that the Senate passed Feb. 12 to modernize the antiquated Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and provide the intelligence community with the appropriate authority it needs to effectively monitor terrorists outside the United States.
This legislation was the product of months of briefings and negotiations with Bush administration and intelligence officials, deliberation in the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees, and debate on the Senate floor. Senators on both sides of the aisle remarked that this was the most important piece of legislation that Congress would address this year and, remarkably, it passed the Senate by a supermajority vote of 68-29.
Unfortunately, this rare demonstration of unity was derailed two days later when the leadership of the House of Representatives refused to allow a vote on the Senate bill, even though a bipartisan majority in the House supported the legislation.
Instead of working to "bring the country together," House leaders spent their last legislative day before a weeklong vacation debating and voting on a seven-month-old contempt resolution against former White House officials, furthering a needless partisan fight.
When they adjourned without voting on the Senate's FISA modernization bill, House leaders ensured the expiration of the Protect America Act, a temporary fix to the existing FISA law and, in many ways, tied the hands of our intelligence community.
Having swiftly dispatched any display of "unity" and "bipartisanship," House leaders quickly employed another catchphrase we have heard in the presidential race: ending the "politics of fear." As is the case with "unity" and "change," such a development would be welcome indeed.
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