Senate

McConnell: Senate staying in session until work is done

by Jordain Carney - 05/21/15 6:13 PM ET

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is turning up the pressure on senators to make a deal on three important bills, vowing to keep the chamber in session until its work is done.

The Senate is quickly approaching a week-long Memorial Day recess, but it still has to finish work on a “fast-track” trade proposal, expiring provisions of the Patriot Act and highway legislation.

“I want to remind everybody we’re going to finish this bill before we leave,” he told senators on the floor. “We’re going to deal with FISA and we’re going to deal with highways.”

{mosads}Senators agreed to end debate on a trade promotion authority (TPA) bill earlier on Thursday, which will allow the president to get trade deals passed through Congress by a simple majority vote.

Senators on both sides of the aisle criticized the lack of amendment votes, with senators, so far, voting on only two of more than 200 filed amendments. Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) are working to find a deal that would allow for additional amendments.

Acknowledging that “everybody is interested in the state of play,” McConnell warned senators to not travel too far from Capitol, saying he wants to “set some votes for later this evening.”

Liberal senators are pledging to use procedural tactics to drag out the trade fight, but McConnell suggested that while they could do that, the end result would be the same: The Senate would finish work on the bill.

“There’s a path forward if people want to take it that could complete all of this work at a reasonable time, probably sometime tomorrow,” he said. “Or, we can make it difficult, but the end won’t change.”

In addition to the trade legislation, senators are currently torn over how to handle provisions of the Patriot Act before they expire on June 1.

There’s bipartisan support for the House-passed USA Freedom Act, which would end the NSA’s bulk collection of phone records. Under the bill, the agency would have to ask private companies for a narrow set of phone records tied to a particular case. The NSA would also no longer hold the phone records in a government database.

But McConnell and other top Republicans want to pass a “clean” short-term extension of the NSA’s powers. It’s unclear if either bill could get the votes needed to pass.

Unless senators get an agreement, they will take a first procedural vote on Saturday at the earliest.

Senators also need to pass a two-month extension of the Highway Trust Fund.

Tags Mitch McConnell Orrin Hatch Ron Wyden