Congress’s summer recess is ending, and many lawmakers have their eyes on the midterms. But between now, November and the lame-duck period, there’s still time to pass legislation before election results shake things up. What should be at the top of the list? Post Opinions writers Max Boot, Robert Gebelhoff, Carine Hajjar and Jason Willick suggest some priorities.
Max Boot: Reform the Russia sanctions bill
In early August, the Senate voted 86-11 to approve the sanctions bill championed by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) intended to punish Russia for its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. The House has time before the midterms to pass a substantially amended bill. As I have previously suggested, it should make two important modifications.
First, strip out the amorphous tariff authority. As it currently stands, the bill would allow President Donald Trump to impose tariffs of up to 100 percent on the five largest purchasers of Russian oil and gas and on the top five countries facilitating Russia’s sanctions evasions.
Second, strip out the authority for the president to issue a waiver for all of the bill’s new sanctions on Russia.
Unless the House makes these major changes, the bill could allow Trump to wage trade wars unrelated to the Russia-Ukraine conflict without necessarily ratcheting up the pressure on Russia to make peace. That would make a travesty of Graham’s desire to help Ukraine win this existential struggle.
Robert Gebelhoff: Fix FISA surveillance
Republicans are probably thinking about their legislative agenda ahead of the midterms in raw political terms — that is, what they can pass before the calculus of their majority changes. But when it comes to reauthorizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, they should do it simply because it should be done.
The provision allows the government to surveil foreigners outside the United States without a warrant. But that has opened a back door for law enforcement to sweep in communications between Americans and those targets, which has been ripe for abuse.
Squabbling over reforms resulted in the section expiring in June, and the clock is ticking before this becomes a real problem. It’s a classic “baby and the bathwater” situation: Section 702, the baby, has been crucial to combating cyberattacks, espionage and drug trafficking; the bathwater is all the nasty Fourth Amendment violations that come with it. A simple solution — which has garnered bipartisan support — would be to adopt a warrant requirement for Americans. No need to wait for a crisis to get it done.
Carine Hajjar: Fund munitions
As the Iran war continues to strain inventories, Congress needs to pass funding for more munitions, and fast. But earlier this month, the Senate passed a continuing resolution to avert yet another government shutdown, and the House passed a similar measure in July. That leaves some pretty major defense spending requests on the table, including an $87.6 billion emergency supplemental funding request that s $21 billion for munitions.
It’s a politically fraught request from a White House that is also requesting $1.5 trillion for defense spending. And the supplemental request isn’t enough to solve the current Iran-related munitions crisis, which exists inside a broader defense procurement crisis. It can take years to scale up defense production.
But any little bit counts — especially as the Pentagon pushes defense contractors to pick up the pace.
Jason Willick: Fight government jawboning
Congress can strike a blow for free speech by passing the Jawbone Act. Sponsored by Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), the bill takes aim at a knotty First Amendment problem: Most Americans speak (and hear others’ speech) through digital platforms controlled by major corporations. The government has significant regulatory leverage over many of those companies, and it can try to indirectly influence what Americans say and hear by urging them to limit certain speech on their platforms.
The Cruz-Wyden bill would let users sue to stop such government “jawboning.” The Biden administration pressured social media companies to remove speech related to the covid-19 pandemic, and the Trump administration’s Federal Communications Commission tried to coerce ABC over a comedian’s comment. The next frontier, which the legislation also covers, is artificial intelligence: Government officials will no doubt also take an interest in conforming AI outputs to their political preferences. The First Amendment needs an extra lift in the digital age.
The post ‘Any little bit counts:’ Four writers on what Congress should do before the midterms appeared first on Washington Post.
