With all the partisan rancor going on in Washington, maybe this is why Congressman Hulshof has missed so many votes?

By Manu Raju

The Bush administration is talking directly with Democrats over rewriting the nation’s surveillance laws and leaving the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee out of the debate, a senior Senate Democrat said Wednesday.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) said that negotiations were occurring without Sen. Kit Bond (Mo.), the ranking Republican on the panel.

“He’s not really in it,” Rockefeller said.

Rockefeller said that Bond had made the talks more difficult by insisting he have private negotiations with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), a move Rockefeller called a “non-starter.”

“You know, Bond, he’s just complicating things,” Rockefeller said. “And I’ve never talked to him about [his one-on-one talks with Hoyer], so I don’t understand it.”

The possibility that talks were occurring between Democrats and the administration had recently angered Bond, who was concerned that a compromise was being hashed out without his input, according to a Republican senator who asked for anonymity. Read more…

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