Democrats Might Save Mike Johnson’s Push to Give Trump Domestic Spying Power

Thanks to opposition from inside his own party, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., was forced to delay a vote on President Donald Trump’s request to extend a major domestic spying law — but Democrats could ride to the rescue.

Johnson decided to delay a vote on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that had been scheduled for this week, Politico reported Friday. The move gives critics of the law more time to push for reforms, including a requirement that federal agents get a warrant before searching for information on Americans.

If the bill ultimately advances to the House floor, however, some top Democrats — including the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut — are already lobbying colleagues to vote for Trump’s request. Others, including members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, are pushing back.

The internal debate among both Democrats and Republicans is a rerun of a clash two years ago over FISA — only this time, Trump’s reelection and the war on Iran have raised the stakes. The spying law expires next month.

With Republicans split, advocates say Democrats have a rare chance to push through added safeguards.

If they want to.

Figures from the Democratic establishment have often been ambivalent or openly hostile to reforming the law, one of the most controversial pieces of post-9/11 legislation and a focus of Edward Snowden’s disclosures.

“Evidence of Misuse”?

Johnson initially seemed poised to push through a vote on the law this week — but reports emerged last Friday that he had delayed the vote until the middle of April. That delay came in the face of skepticism about extending FISA without reforms from hard-liners in Johnson’s own party, such House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris, R-Md.

Section 702 of FISA allows employees of the FBI and other agencies to search for information on U.S. citizens and residents among spy data that is collected abroad.

Congress has passed a series of partial reforms intended to curb widespread abuses of the law by the FBI. During fiery debate over the law in 2024, Johnson managed to narrowly get the bill through the House by agreeing to a two-year extension.

He also teamed up with then-President Joe Biden to pressure members to defeat by a single vote reformers’ most highly sought-after amendment, a provision that would have forced federal agents to go to a judge before searching for information about Americans.

The vote this year is shaping up to be as much of a nail-biter, and it appears that Johnson may need Democrats to lend an assist. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., says that he will vote against extending the law without reforms, which means that Johnson can only afford to lose one other GOP member.

Himes, who is leading the push to get Democrats to pass a “clean” renewal of Section 702, said in a letter to his party colleagues last week that he understood why they might have concerns about the Trump administration having access to that powerful spying tool. Still, he urged them to vote for reauthorization if the bill makes it to a final floor vote.

“If I saw any evidence that Trump administration officials were directing the intelligence community to use Section 702 for illegal or improper purposes, such as to persecute, surveil, or harass Americans,” he said, “I would urge a ‘no’ vote on reauthorization, even though I recognize the program’s unparalleled national security value. I have not seen evidence of misuse, despite being on the lookout for any hint of it.”

One House staffer who asked for anonymity to speak freely said they were surprised that Himes has not pushed for concessions from Johnson — on FISA or other legislation — in exchange for Democratic support.

That support could be especially crucial if Johnson struggles to pass a procedural vehicle, known as a rule, to get the bill onto the House floor for a final vote.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said during a press conference last Thursday that his entire caucus would oppose proceeding to a vote under a rule, which is standard practice for the opposition party in the House.

Jeffries left open the possibility, however, that Democrats could freely cross party lines to support bringing the bill to the floor under a suspension of the rules, which would require support from a two-thirds majority of House members.

“Jim Himes is emerging as arguably the most important actor in this fight,” said Sean Vitka, executive director of the left-leaning group Demand Progress, which supports further reforms to FISA. “The most significant question at the moment is: Will he be able to marshal enough Democrats to go with his play? And that ultimately is a question of whether or not members of Congress think people are looking.”

“Times Have Changed”

On the opposite side of the debate from Himes, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, D-Md., sent a letter to Democrats Thursday urging them to oppose a “clean” reauthorization of the surveillance bill.

Under pressure from the Biden administration and to the disappointment of privacy advocates, Raskin voted in favor of the legislation two years ago. He said in his letter this week that “times have changed.”

“The safeguards put in place in 2024 have been badly eroded by the Trump Administration,” he wrote. “The ‘clean’ extension favored by President Trump and Stephen Miller leaves the Trump Administration in charge of policing its own abuses of this authority — and what could go wrong with that?”

Raskin did not directly condition support for the bill on adding a warrant requirement, the longtime holy grail of privacy advocates.

In a letter Thursday, more than 90 civil rights and progressive groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, Demand Progress, and Indivisible called on Congress to require the government to obtain a warrant before searching for communications about Americans.

They also highlighted a relatively new issue: the data-broker loophole. Under current law, intelligence and law enforcement agencies have been able to skirt civil liberties protections by buying information from data brokers that could include location data, search histories, and transaction records of Americans.

FBI Director Kash Patel testified during a Senate hearing Wednesday that the agency was gleaning “valuable intelligence” from such data.

Advocates hope that in addition to a warrant requirement, Democrats could use their leverage in the surveillance bill debate to close the data-broker loophole.

Dems in Disarray

Some Democrats who helped doom a warrant requirement last time have yet to signal how they will vote this time around.

Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., gave a passionate defense of the domestic spying bill on the House floor in 2024. His primary opponent, former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, has already attacked him over the issue.

Patel and CIA Director John Ratcliffe gave a closed briefing to House members about the law on Wednesday. Speaking to The Intercept after that meeting, Goldman said he was still deciding whether to support a clean reauthorization.

“From my perspective, I’m going to need more data and information and need to have some way of verifying the information that they are providing, because I have no faith that this administration is doing anything by the law,” Goldman said.

Another Democrat who voted against a warrant requirement in 2024 and now faces a primary challenge from the left, Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., said he also has yet to decide.

“There are threats to the country, and then there are threats for the country from this administration,” Cohen said. “It’s kind of a balancing act.”

“Fake” Deadline

Advocates pushing for added reforms would have to guide them through both the House and Senate before the April 20 expiration of the current law.

The ongoing conflict with Iran is adding to the pressure, with Trump’s supporters arguing that it makes passage of a “clean” reauthorization more important.

One supporter of a warrant requirement, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said this week that he now supports a clean reauthorization.

“We have been at this for 10 years,” Jordan told reporters Wednesday. “There has been huge improvement based on the reforms we have done over the last decade, and this is a temporary extension, a short-term extension at the time we have this military operation going on in Iran.”

Reform advocates, however, have argued that the pending deadline is not as pressing as it seems. If the law expires next month, intelligence agencies may still be able to force tech companies to hand over communications under existing authorizations from a special surveillance court that do not expire for months.

“We have time to get this right,” Raskin said in his letter. “Opposing ‘clean’ reauthorization does not mean Section 702 suddenly turns off in April. FISA explicitly allows existing certifications to continue past a sunset. The government is in court right now making sure that Section 702 surveillance extends well into next year, no matter what.”