HR 963 – SAR Immunity – Passes in Committee

As was expected last week, the House Judiciary Committee passed HR 963, the See Something, Say Something Act of 2011. After defeating four amendments from Democrats, three by voice vote and one by a lopsided 16-4 vote (which may have been closer if more Democrats had showed up for the hearing), the bill was approved by a voice vote.

Readers may remember that I had commented on the fact that a nearly identical version of this bill (HR 495) had been introduced earlier by Rep. King (R, NY). That bill was passed over by the Committee to take up this bill that had been subsequently introduced by Chairman Smith (R, TX). This was obliquely addressed by Smith’s official statement on this markup of HR 963. He said:

“I’d like to thank Chairman Peter King of the Homeland Security Committee, who has long advocated for this and other measures to keep America safe.”

With that left-handed endorsement buried in the historical record, Chairman Smith’s name will now be the sole name associated with this legislation, a fact that will almost certainly show up in future campaign literature. Unless, of course, the Senate takes up S 505, the companion bill to HR 495, that was introduced by Senators Lieberman (I, CT) and Collins (R, ME) before the whole House passes HR 963.

This bill will almost certainly pass in the full House. Democrats will again attempt to get anti-profiling language added to the bill, but that will not be successful. Senate passage is also likely, but the lack of restrictions on racial profiling could interfere with the bill being considered there. It is hard to see how such restrictions could be effectively worded when dealing with suspicious activity reports by civilians since ‘profiling’ definitions typically depend on patterns of activity not individual cases.

HR 963 Introduced – SARS Immunity

Last week Rep. Smith (R, TX), the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, introduced HR 963, the See Something, Say Something Act of 2011. Now if you think that this sounds familiar it is because I wrote last week about S 505 which had the same title. In fact, the observant reader might remember that I wrote that the earlier bill was a companion measure to HR 495.

I explained in the blog about S 505 that a companion bill is an identical bill introduced into the second house of Congress to make it easier to get the bill through committees in an expeditious manner. The language in S 505 and HR 495 are identical.

HR 963 is not technically a companion bill to S 505 and it can’t be a companion bill to HR 495, having been introduced into the same house of Congress. I say that it cannot ‘technically’ be considered a companion bill because it is not identical; it differs in just one word from the other two bills. In §890A(b)(1) S 963 says, in part; “authorized official as defined by section (d)(1)(A)”. The other two bills say; “as defined by sub-section”. As you can clearly see this is a substantial difference (SARCASM ALERT).

The earlier bill, authored by Rep. King (R, NY) was assigned to the House Judiciary Committee for consideration, the Committee chaired by Rep. Smith (R, TX). It is obvious that Chairman Smith and his committee staff are extremely diligent in reviewing legislation referred to their committee (I know there was already one sarcasm alert in this post). Anyone want to bet which bill gets reported out of Committee?

BTW: In my listing of legislation, I am going to tack HR 963 to the listing for HR 495 to which I have already tacked S 505. Sorry about that Rep. Smith, but here I try to go first come, first serve.

S 505 Introduced – SAR Immunity

Yesterday Senators Collins (R, ME) and Lieberman (I, CT) introduced S 505, the See Something, Say Something Act of 2011. The language in this bill is identical to that found in HR 495 that was introduced last month by Rep. King, making it a ‘companion bill’. Introduction of companion bills allows committee work to proceed in both houses of Congress at the same time, increasing the likelihood of passage and potentially shortening the time needed for consideration.

Early consideration in Committee in both the Senate and House is probable because the bills were introduced the Chairs (effectively co-chairs in the Senate) of each Committee. A further indication of the relative importance of this bill is the fact that a link to a copy of the committee draft was placed on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. This makes a copy of the legislation publicly available before the bill is officially available on the Government Printing Office Site.

BTW: HR 963 introduced yesterday by Rep. Smith (R, TX) apparently addresses the same issue but a copy of the bill is not yet publicly available.