First FISA Amendment Dies

The Cardin amendment, to sunset the new bill after four (as opposed to six) years, failed to reach 60 votes. It died 49-46. As a bellwether this is bad news. The president considered this provision–one of the weaker of the proposed amendments–unacceptable, and threatened to veto the whole bill if it passed. It didn’t. And the Republicans’ unanimity suggests that even simple-majority votes will be extremely difficult for Democrats to win.