Shays Intelligence Bill Shot Down
By Dori Berman
WASHINGTON, October 7, 2004-The House passed an intelligence overhaul bill Friday that would call for the greatest changes in the nation’s intelligence system since the beginning of the Cold War, just as Congress is about to adjourn for the final time before the presidential election.
The bill differs from the intelligence reform bill passed Wednesday by the Senate, setting up a difficult reconciliation in a conference committee between the chambers later this month.
The House and Senate bills both call for the creation of a national intelligence director and a National Counterterrorism Center. The bills differ in that the House bill gives significantly less budgetary power to the national director than does the Senate bill, a power highly recommended by the 9/11 Commission, whose recommendations the bills were drafted to adopt.
Passage came after the defeat Thursday night of an amendment to the bill that would have substituted a bipartisan bill similar to the Senate version. Instead, the bill passed was one drafted by House Republican leaders.
Rep. Chris Shays (R-Conn.) had championed the bipartisan measure. Despite its defeat, Shays seemed confident that a positive intelligence reform bill would arrive on the President’s desk before the election.
“A good bill will pass and I think it will be closer to the Senate bill than the House bill, because I believe ultimately that the president is going to say ‘I like the Senate bill more’,” Shays said Thursday afternoon. President Bush and the bipartisan 9/11 Commission have endorsed the Senate bill, co-sponsored by Sens. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine).
The bipartisan amendment would have adopted all 41 recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, while the House leadership bill picks up only 11. The leadership measure also includes more than 50 provisions that the commission had not recommended, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), another champion of the measure, said Thursday at a news conference.
Some of those provisions have sparked controversy, with civil liberties groups objecting strongly to one, for example, that would make it easier to deport aliens without a hearing.
Before the amendment was brought to a vote Thursday, Shays said he would vote for the House leadership bill if Menendez substitute was rejected.
“I am not critical that [the GOP leadership bill] is not a significant step forward; it’s just not as far as it needs to be,” he said.
