By Tim Starks, CQ Staff

In a revolt against the Democratic leadership, the House on Wednesday defeated a 21-day extension of a temporary law governing electronic surveillance.

Dozens of Democrats defected, as the short-term bill failed, 191-229.

The stunning rebuff followed a parliamentary war that raged all day on the floor. Democrats successfully tabled, 222-196, an appeal from the ruling of the chair that a GOP motion to recommit the 21-day extension and amend it with the text of a Senate bill was non-germane.

But that procedural vote — typically a party-unity test — was not the end of the story, as soon became clear. Instead, the stopgap measure (HR 5349) was torpedoed on final passage. Not a single Republican voted for the extension, while 34 Democrats — a mix of liberals and conservatives — voted “no.”

House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer , D-Md., said Democrats would still use the time the extension would have provided to negotiate a compromise with the Senate, which passed a surveillance overhaul bill (S 2248) Tuesday by 68-29.

He would not rule out bringing another extension to the floor. But one of 21 conservative Blue Dog Democrats who had previously endorsed the Senate bill and who voted against the 21-day extension said it was time to take up the long-term legislation.

“We need to address this and get it over with. I want us to vote on the Senate bill.” Lincoln Davis , D-Tenn., said.

The Rules Committee later approved by voice vote a rule allowing the panel to meet for same-day consideration of surveillance legislation, opening the door for the House to consider another bill Thursday.

A temporary surveillance law (PL 110-55) is set to expire Feb. 16, a day after Congress begins its Presidents Day recess. Democratic leaders say the government can continue to operate its spying programs under permanent law, continuing activities now in progress and obtaining warrants for new surveillance. Republicans say expiration of the temporary law would harm the nation’s security.

Rep. Heather M. Wilson, R-N.M., said Democratic leaders appeared to be caught off-guard by the failure of the extension, but a House Democratic aide said the vote was mainly intended to provide cover for caucus members vulnerable to GOP claims that they opposed needed tools for surveillance of suspected terrorists.

House Republicans earlier engineered a series of procedural protest votes against the extension, which President Bush had said he would veto.

The endorsement of the Senate bill by 21 Blue Dogs led Republicans to believe they could win approval of that measure through a motion to recommit the stopgap bill with instructions to amend it with the text of the Senate bill.

Kevin Smith, a spokesman for Minority Leader John A. Boehner , R-Ohio, said, “Twenty-one Blue Dogs will be able to vote their conscience.”

No direct vote was allowed on the Senate -passed bill, however — at least not immediately.

The shorter, stopgap measure was designed to give House and Senate conferees time to resolve their differences over the long-term legislation overhauling the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

“All we’re asking for is an extension of 21 days,” said Michael Arcuri , D-N.Y. “When you think of it in the grand scheme of things, 21 days to think about whether this bill continues to give the American people the liberty they have had, that’s not much to ask.”

But Wilson said Democrats could not continue to authorize surveillance on “a month-to-month basis” without harming intelligence operations.

Bush drew a hard line against another extension. “Congress has had over six months to discuss and deliberate. The time for debate is over. I will not accept any temporary extension,” the president said.

“If Republicans and Democrats in the Senate can come together on a good piece of legislation, there’s no reason that the Republicans and Democrats in the House cannot come together and pass the Senate bill immediately.”

House leaders have resisted pressure from the White House and Senate Republicans to take up the Senate version of the House-passed bill (HR 3773), a carefully negotiated bipartisan measure that was put together by the Senate Intelligence Committee with input from the Bush administration.

A major sticking point is retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies facing lawsuits for their alleged participation in warrantless surveillance. The Senate bill would grant such immunity, while the House-passed measure would not. Bush has said he will veto the House version.

“If these companies are subjected to lawsuits that could cost them billions of dollars, they won’t participate; they won’t help us; they won’t help protect America,” Bush said. “Liability protection is critical to securing the private sector’s cooperation with our intelligence efforts.”

Lapse in Law?

Republicans are raising the specter of a hobbled intelligence community if the temporary surveillance law expires this weekend and the Senate-passed FISA bill does not become law.

But legal experts say the implications of any expiration are mixed. They note that any spying orders already in place would remain in effect long after the temporary law lapses. At the same time, most experts agree that the administration would have to go back to the secret FISA court created by the 1978 law (PL 95-511) to obtain warrants in cases where foreign-to-foreign communications are routed through the United States’ telecommunications infrastructure. That poses little immediate threat, they say, but if a backlog of warrant applications were to build, as happened last summer, it could begin to cause problems.

And because Bush administration officials have repeatedly claimed that the president has all the authority he needs to conduct a surveillance program in the service of national security, some experts argue that the administration is likely to do as it pleases regardless of what happens in Congress.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid , D-Nev., and Hoyer blamed the GOP for the current impasse.

“Senate Republicans and the White House have spent many weeks slow-walking the bill as part of a Republican strategy to jam the House,” Reid said. “I believe it is wrong and irresponsible for the White House to do this.”

He said that if the temporary extension was defeated or vetoed by Bush, “the responsibility for any ensuing intelligence collection gap lies on his shoulders and his alone.”

Hoyer called Bush’s position “basically dishonest,’’ “irrational,’’ ‘’irresponsible,’’ and aimed at a coverup of the role played by the telecommunications in what critics say was illegal domestic surveillance.

“If the president believes what he says,’’ that without a FISA law in place America’s ability to track calls of terrorism suspects will be curtailed, “it would be irresponsible of the president not to sign’’ another extension of the temporary law.

Hoyer said Democrats’ insistence on another short-term extension stemmed in part from a refusal to be rushed by the Senate and Bush just as Congress readies for its Presidents Day recess. “We believe that responsible people on both sides in the Capitol want to bridge the difference. That can’t be done in 48 hours.’’

Edward Epstein and Kathleen Hunter contributed to this story.

First posted Feb. 13, 2008 9:39 a.m.