Free Republic

House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R.-Ill.) has promised disgruntled conservatives that the House's top priority in the 109th Congress is passing legislation that bars illegal aliens from obtaining driver's licenses, language the Senate stripped from the just-passed intelligence bill. House Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R.-Wis.), a strong proponent of the driver's license provision, secured Hastert's assurance once House leaders agreed to vote on the intelligence bill last week. Sensenbrenner helped thwart a November 20 vote on the legislation because the provision was removed. Hastert's spokesman, John Feehery, said the speaker wouldn't hesitate about attaching the language to an Iraq supplemental bill,...

CONGRESSIONAL NEGOTIATORS DELIVER LUMP-OF-COAL INTEL BILL TO 9/11 FAMILIES FOR CHRISTMAS; But Tancredo, House Conservatives Claim Partial Victory in Securing Bush Commitment on Addressing Driver’s License Issue Next Year WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Littleton) expressed disappointment with the conference report on the intelligence bill after negotiators on the bill stripped key border security provisions approved by the House of Representatives in October from the bill. Tancredo had been a leader in the effort to retain the provisions – recommended by the 9/11 Commission – executing a parliamentary maneuver prior to the Thanksgiving recess temporarily thwarting efforts to...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a massive reorganization of the United States intelligence community to address the Sept. 11 commission's complaints that the nation's spy agencies don't work together properly to deter terrorist attacks The bill, approved on a 96-2 vote, would create a national counterterrorism center and also a position of national intelligence director who would coordinate most of the nation's nonmilitary intelligence agencies. "Those two provisions are the key recommendations of the 9/11 commission," said GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who shepherded the bill with Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn. "We want to make...