Apparently this was done because Sensenbrenner has some really hot and happening July 4th vacation plans. I can see no other reason besides that, unless you count the fact that he is a cantankerous old windbag who likes pulling people's chains to assert his authority.
The House balked yesterday at a Senate plan to extend the USA Patriot Act by six months to give Congress and President Bush more time to work out their differences, instead forcing the Senate and the administration to accept a one-month extension.
At the same time, the House approved a $460 billion defense bill that was shorn of a provision promoted by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) that would have opened Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. But it put off until next year final agreement on a major budget measure that would trim federal spending by nearly $40 billion over five years.
That was interesting. No one is talking about that this morning.
One of the most contentious disputes was over whether to reauthorize the USA Patriot Act, and it appeared as if the Senate had finessed an impasse with the White House by agreeing Wednesday night to extend the existing domestic surveillance law -- set to expire on Dec. 31 -- by six months. But House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) refused to go along with the agreement yesterday. He demanded that the House pass an extension only through Feb. 3, forcing a few senators to return to the Capitol last night to give the Senate's consent.
"The fact is that a six-month extension, in my opinion, would have simply allowed the Senate to duck the issue until the last week in June," said Sensenbrenner, who had largely prevailed in negotiations with the Senate on a new version of the anti-terrorism law, only to see the compromise blocked by a Senate filibuster. "Now they came pretty close to wrecking everybody's Christmas. I didn't want to put the entire Congress in the position of them wrecking everybody's Independence Day."
Priorities, people. Congressional vacations are much more important than national security. Let's not forget that.