After a brief skirmish over new identification requirements for cross-border
travel, it appeared House GOP leaders have agreed to let the $34.8 billion
FY07 Homeland Security appropriations conference report come to the floor as
early as today, GOP aides said. House Speaker Hastert and Judiciary Chairman
Sensenbrenner, key architects of the 2004 intelligence overhaul law
stipulating the requirements, had pressured appropriators to drop language
delaying them by 17 months. But the delay had broad support among House and
Senate Republicans, and in the end leaders did not want to hold up the
politically sensitive bill, which includes $21.3 billion for border
protection efforts — a 10 percent increase over the current fiscal year.
Appropriators Wednesday night were preparing to file the necessary paperwork
for leaders to bring up the bill under a “same-day rule” for floor
consideration in the House, possibly today. Senior appropriators on both
sides of the Capitol opposed opening the bill to further changes, arguing
they had struck a delicate balance and any changes would risk losing votes.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Specter and Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, both said
they would withdraw their votes if changes were made without their consent.
“The conference report is over. It’s final,” said House Homeland Security
Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Harold Rogers, R-Ky. Added Senate
Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Judd Gregg, R-N.H.:
“This bill is closed. We’re not reopening it.”

Complicating matters further had been a House-Senate dispute over additional
immigration-related legislation sought by Hastert, and aides said they were
trying to resolve his concerns by either including those measures in the
defense authorization bill or exploring the possibility of moving them
during the lame-duck session.

Defense authorization

The prospects for passing the FY07 defense authorization bill before
lawmakers flee Washington this weekend dimmed Wednesday as House Speaker
Hastert and Senate Armed Services Chairman Warner remained deadlocked over
whether unrelated legislation should be attached to the bill.

Lawmakers leaving the meeting said Hastert and Warner still had not reached
an agreement over whether to attach federal court security legislation and a
controversial Republican measure aimed at detaining and deporting immigrant
gang members and speeding the removal of immigrant criminals.

Other House and Senate staffers indicated that there was little room for a
compromise, signaling that the bill would not move until one side backs
down. “Somebody needs to blink,” an aide said. Hastert has said Senate
Majority Leader Frist assured him the Senate would consider the
court-security and immigrant gang legislation before the six-week recess for
the elections.

With time running out before the planned recess, the defense authorization
bill was one of only a few options to serve as a vehicle for those bills.

But even as the Hastert-Warner standoff continued, House and Senate
conferees appeared to have resolved nearly all differences in their
competing versions of the defense authorization measure.

In the last several days, Warner and Hunter have agreed to compromise
language on a divisive House provision that would have allowed military
chaplains to pray in the name of Jesus Christ.

Separately, no movement was apparent Wednesday in the effort to add language
to the defense authorization bill to restrict Internet gambling.

Summary: Big news here is that Hastert (and by extention Frist) has
apparently given up on trying to attach his add-ons to the Homeland Security
bill. It is probably in gear to move through both chambers by Saturday.
Meanwhile, on the DoD Authorization side, Warner is holding firm on the
add-ons and it is unlikely to see debate before the lame duck session.

I think there is about a 10% chance of iGaming legislation passing before
the recess and I’ll stick to that assessment just to err on the conservative
side. If I were trying to put a negative spin on this, I’d say that to some
extent we’d rather have a complete meltdown than the gears moving at all,
even if the gears seem to be moving in our direction. But self-evidently
there is mostly good news.

There is apparently some big luncheon/cheerleading session between Bush and
GOP leaders scheduled for tomorrow. Just looking at the calendar, that may
be the best and last chance for any sort of major shift in congressional
strategy.