Controversial Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act Passes in Senate

[bradl]

Here's a list of Senators who voted on the bill:

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/L...ote_cfm.cfm?congress=114&session=1&vote=00291

Still looking for the links for who in the House voted for it. However, I can tell you that this came via the House Rules Committee. A quick and dirty explanation from /.

See, this bill used to be H.R. 2029, which was a military appropriations bill. It went through the House a few months ago, then the Senate made a bunch of modifications last month where it passed unanimously. You can read all the sundry details of its history at the link.

What appears to have happened is that the House Appropriations Committee decided they needed a "vehicle" to pass the omnibus spending packages for next year, so they got the Rules Committee to propose a 2000-page amendment. (Actually, there are two amendments; the second is much shorter.)

So, technically, this is a giant amendment proposed by a committee to a bill that had already passed the House and then was amended by the Senate and passed by them.

Anyhow, what generally happens with these huge slates of amendments is that the Chair of the Committee (in this case, the Rules Committee) will just introduce the whole group of amendments, which will then be voted on by the House. Sometimes you can find the details of who exactly proposed which amendments by digging through Committee reports, but in this case with a giant single amendment (with only Section (N) dealing with CISA), it's doubtful that there's going to be anything in the official record to track to a specific individual, other than perhaps the Committee Chair who may officially present it on behalf of the Committee.

If you think this is overly complex and sounds crazy, you'd be right. Welcome to the bureaucratic nightmare that is Congressional legislative practice.

So the question becomes: who is on the Appropriations Committee to ask/get the Rules Committee to add such a huge amendment to the bill, why such a huge amendment was added, and why neither committees were scrutinized on it.

BL.

 

[LizKat]

Well this is a deal that's been being negotiated, it didn't just happen... the form it takes in the end is almost irrelevant and is usually related to matching up paperwork in both houses so they don't have to do some kind of reconciliation. Everyone hears holiday recess sleighbells...