FISA Section 702 Reauthorization Stalls Three Days Before April 30 Expiration as Bipartisan Reforms Emerge

Analysis
The twin House failures on April 25, the five-year reform package and the procedural clean-extension vote, confirm that the stalemate has deepened beyond what the April 14 stopgap timeline implied. Speaker Johnson's three-year proposal is substantively unchanged from prior versions and still lacks the warrant requirement anchoring both Freedom Caucus and Democratic opposition. Congress will likely pass some form of Section 702 reauthorization by mid-May 2026, though the already-blown April 20 deadline and Senate floor-time constraints demonstrate that the perfect prior reauthorization record does not insulate against procedural slippage in this cycle. A bipartisan AI-surveillance reform coalition adds a second organized veto bloc absent from prior cycles, narrowing the path to a clean extension further than the 2024 reauthorization required.