Meet the Four Democrats Who’ll Decide If Trump Gets His Domestic Spying Law

A messy fight over whether the U.S. government can conduct warrantless surveillance of American citizens could come down to whether four Democrats endorse Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson’s latest plan.

Johnson was stymied this month when he attempted to push through a reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The roadblock came thanks to opposition from most Democrats, plus 20 hard-right members of the GOP caucus.

Still, four Democrats crossed party lines to vote for a procedural motion to advance the bill, despite instructions from House Democratic leaders to the contrary. Whether those four support Johnson during a vote this week could prove crucial.

The four Democrats are Reps. Josh Gottheimer and Tom Suozzi of New Jersey, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, and Jared Golden of Maine, who is not seeking reelection this year. None responded to requests for comment.

One advocate said the outcome of the vote could hinge on their decision.

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“It all comes down to those four and where they are going to land,” said Hajar Hammado, a senior policy adviser at the left-leaning advocacy group Demand Progress, “and if they are going to continue to try to hand Trump and Stephen Miller warrantless surveillance authorities without any sort of checks or reforms that make sure they’re not violating civil liberties.”

Given the skepticism of hard-right Republican lawmakers, Johnson needs every vote he can muster. On Thursday, he put forward a new proposal to extend the law for three years, with additional layers of oversight and auditing.

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No Warrant Requirement

The latest proposal does not address reformers’ highest priority: a warrant requirement that would force FBI agents and National Security Agency analysts to get a court order before they search for information on Americans from ostensibly “foreign” communications — material collected abroad as the NSA scoops up emails, text messages, and the like.

Kia Hamadanchy, a senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, said Johnson’s latest proposal does little to change existing law. Under Johnson’s proposal, searches would be reviewed after the fact by a privacy officer at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and potentially later by an inspector general.

“This just follows the old pattern of adding layer after layer of oversight,” he said. “The idea that the inspector general of the intelligence community is going to stand up to Trump on any sort of abuses is just not going to happen.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York threw cold water on the idea of Democratic leadership formally supporting Johnson during a press conference Thursday before the latest draft was released. He said it would be “extremely difficult” for Democrats to find common ground with Republicans on the issue so long as Kash Patel — who has been embroiled in controversy over allegations about his drinking habits — remains director of the FBI.

Johnson may not need to make major concessions to bring a handful of Democrats over to his side.

A large group of centrists has signaled that they would support a “clean” extension of FISA — without major reforms — if it comes to the House floor. But they have so far followed the advice of Jeffries to oppose a procedural vote to bring the bill to the floor.

On April 17, the smaller group of four Democrats took the additional step of crossing party lines to support Johnson on the procedural vote, which ultimately failed, thanks only to hard-right members of the GOP.

Freedom Caucus Flip?

After that defeat, Johnson secured a short, 10-day extension of the spying law to come up with new legislation. Members of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus hope to use the next vote series to secure their long-standing, and unrelated, goal of banning a central bank digital currency.

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Advocates are warily watching that debate. They worry that the digital currency ban could win over enough right-wing Republicans to hand Johnson a victory — a strategy that only works if the four Democrats continue to play along.

Progressive groups outside Congress are already targeting the four with an aggressive pressure campaign. One group, Fight for the Future, has dubbed them “the Fascist Four.”

Another supporter of existing law, House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Jim Himes, D-Conn., told Politico on Thursday that he has gotten an earful from constituents who oppose extending it without a warrant requirement.

“I’ve been taking a ton of risk, I’ve been doing a ton of explanations,” Himes said.

Himes said he has been talking to individual Republicans to craft a compromise, but Johnson’s leadership team has not engaged with him.