Last night the Republicans got to have a secret session in the House to talk about the new legislation the House will be voting on today. Yóu’d think that if the session needed to be in secret, there’d be new information coming out on warrantless wiretapping and why the big telecom companies need retroactive immunity, but you’d be wrong. McJoan of Daily Kos reports on a statement from Steny Hoyer following the session and what it all means.

Steny Hoyer did have this to say upon the session’s end:

“I did not hear any new information tonight that dissuades me from my very strong belief that the FISA bill House Democrats have produced – and which the House will vote on tomorrow – is a reasonable, thoughtful, appropriate piece of legislation that will ensure that the intelligence community has all the tools it needs to protect our nation, while also respecting the Constitutional protections that Americans rightfully feel are so important. Tomorrow, I will urge members on both sides of the aisle to vote for this legislation.”

Because there was no new information to be had. The House leadership called the Republicans’ bluff–they probably called for the damned thing thinking the Dems would reject it, and then they would have some great tool to use against them in the debate. I can just hear them now: “Not all the secret information was heard, it’s irresponsible of them to go forward with this vote.”

Well, leadership let the Republicans have their little session, even though they admitted on the House floor in the debate leading to the session that they had no new info. They were left standing there holding the bag, just creating one more obstruction. Funny way for them to behave, considering how dangerous they say it is for the nation to go one more day without resolution of the FISA issue.

Oh and that Republican-called secret session in Congress? Glenn Greenwald notes that just last month Minority Leader John Boehner was against any sort of secret debates on this legislation. 

The House is expected to vote today. I don’t know where the whip count is exactly, but expect it to be close. Democrats need to keep progressives in the caucus on board with the new plan, which includes generally good oversight provisions and leaves it up to federal courts to decide if the telecoms need immunity. The word is that the Speaker is whipping very hard and may be able to hold a number of Blue Dogs with the rest of the caucus, which would presumably mean that the legislation will pass.

Once the new House FISA legislation passes, it will be sent along for the Senate to consider. I do not have a sense on how likely it would be for the Senate to adopt it without further modification, but we will worry about that once the House passes this bill. Make no mistake, the new House legislation is a big step up on the previously passed Senate Intelligence Committee bill. The House leadership should be applauded for standing up for the Constitution and rejecting what the Senate has passed as a means of moving forward.

Naturally, if the House and Senate both pass this new legislation, President Bush will veto it. Of course, President Bush’s understanding of the Constitution and the balance of civil liberties and national security has never been a metric worthy of consideration when figuring out what the law should be in America. Hopefully the pro-Constitution Democrats will continue to ignore it as they plot a course forward.