Harry Reid, on the Senate floor 1/31/08, at about 5:25 p.m. ET (pre-UC agreement):

There will be no rollcall votes today. I am disappointed we have had one rollcall vote all week. There is no reason to point fingers. It sometimes happens. We have two extremely difficult areas of legislation, one dealing with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the other dealing with the stimulus package. These two things have been very difficult to work out.

I have been told, with the last conversation I had with the Speaker, as a matter of fact, to try to work out one of the chinks we had on our side with the FISA legislation. I think that is worked out on our [Democratic, apparently both Senate and House] side. You never know what is going to come up.

But that is the way it is. It is my understanding the Republicans are going to now, once the [pending, final UC] agreement has been written, they are going to hotline that and see if we can get that done. But regardless of that, the Republican leader and I spoke a while ago, and we hope we can get this done so it will give us a way to end this early next week.

But there will be no votes today. It would not be fair to everyone to start on this bill, as we would not be able to do it for another 45 minutes or an hour the way things go. - Harry Reid, 1/31

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?dbname=2008_record&page=S529&position=all

Earlier in the day Thursday, in outlining on the Senate floor his planned agenda for the information of his colleagues, Reid said this:

I do say that I think it is going to take me--as my colleagues know, all last year I had four Democratic Senators running for President. I wish they could all have been elected President, but only one can be, so two of them are out of that race now. I still have two Democratic Senators involved. As my colleagues know, next Tuesday is Super Tuesday, and they are both very busy, as is Senator McCain. So I probably can't get them [Obama and Clinton] back here until Monday, but I do need them back. So the Republican leader understands that, and we will try to work something out today to give us a pathway to complete this stimulus package and FISA. - Harry Reid, 1/31

Http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?dbname=2008_record&page=S506&position=all

Finally, this is the closing portion of the UC Agreement, offered and passed at about 8:15 p.m. ET last night:

...provided further, that a managers' amendment be in order if cleared by the managers and the leaders; that upon disposition of all amendments, the substitute amendment [the Bond/Rockefeller substitute], as amended, be agreed to, and the bill be read the third time; that the Senate then vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the bill [which I believe has yet to be filed]; that upon passage of the bill, the Senate proceed to Calendar No. 517, H.R. 3773, and all after the enacting clause be stricken and the text of S. 2248, as amended, be inserted in lieu thereof, the bill be advanced to third reading, passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; that passage of S. 2248 be vitiated and then returned to the calendar.

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?dbname=2008_record&page=S536&position=all

So there is, as I read it, no way now for Dodd and/or Feingold to filibuster to prevent a final vote on the amended Senate Intelligence Committee bill. They have both agreed to proceed directly to a cloture vote (because someone apparently already plans to file a cloture motion) to cut off debate on the amended bill (which removes the required delay of a couple of days, in which Dodd and Feingold could try to rally 41 votes to their side), and if that cloture vote gets 60 votes, that's it - the bill will pass by simple majority either immediately, or after Dodd and Feingold use up the remaining, limited hours of post-cloture debate. [There's no indication that Dodd plans to start objecting to every UC request in the Senate, in order to effectively shut it down in a pseudo-filibuster attempt to stop the evisceration of our Constitution and laws.]

I don't know what Dodd or Feingold's options are with regard to a filibuster of any conference committee bill - but I think Nancy Pelosi plans to ram the final Senate version of FISA through the House over any and all objections, as she did with the Protect America Act in August. Mrs. Pelosi does have enormous power as Speaker, despite the fact that she refuses to use it to defend our Constitution or to uphold the rule of law.