The House finally gets it done on foreign aid
In a rare weekend vote series, lawmakers passed four bills to send billions in emergency funding to US allies and global war zones. The Senate is on track to take up the legislation early next week.
The House this afternoon approved several national security measures that bring Congress one step closer to providing billions of dollars in emergency military funding to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, plus humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza, Haiti and Sudan amid rising international tensions.
The process leading up to final passage included a heaping helping of the Republican infighting that’s defined the House since the party took control of the chamber last year. It featured a shift from Speaker Mike Johnson in the tone and tenor of his public messaging on Ukraine after previously opposing additional support to the war-torn country as a junior member of House GOP leadership—an evolution that could cost him his job. And it also served as another instance of Democrats stepping up to the plate to govern through the chaos.
“First of all, this shows that Republicans don’t know how to control and work the House to get things done,” Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Once Upon a Hill. “Democrats do and again we had to stand up and get this thing done despite themselves.”
Ritchie Torres—another New Yorker and one of the House Democratic Caucus’s most vocal supporters of Israel—said that delaying foreign aid for as long as the House did undermined America’s reputation as the leader of the free world.
“It’s a matter of urgency. Russia is on the verge of defeating Ukraine. Without foreign aid, Ukraine has no chance of overcoming Russia’s invasion,” Torres told OUAH ahead of the final vote. “We’re creating a power vacuum that’s going to be filled by the likes of China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. So we have to demonstrate that we are a reliable partner to our allies Israel, Taiwan and Ukraine.”
Rep. Annie Kuster (N.H.), who chairs the center-left New Democrat Coalition, told OUAH she was relieved the House cleared this hurdle.
“I’m just so happy we got such a strong bipartisan vote,” she said. “The unity in our caucus was critical to getting this done.”
The Senate bill, deconstructed with minor tweaks
The Senate passed a comprehensive emergency national security funding bill in February by an overwhelming 70–29 margin. But Speaker Johnson refused to immediately bring the legislation to the floor despite persistent public pressure from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and the White House.
Internal politics made clearing the Senate bill with an ever-shrinking Republican majority an almost impossible lift for Johnson. The speaker, who’s been on the job less than six months after succeeding Kevin McCarthy, had already drawn the ire of House conservatives for reaching across the aisle to prevent multiple government shutdowns and fully fund federal departments and agencies. Not to mention, the number of his members who opposed Ukraine aid had grown and demands for punitive border measures remained even though they would never pass the Senate or reach President Joe Biden’s desk.
Johnson’s solution was to split the components of the Senate bill into four separate measures to be individually considered. House Republicans who opposed Ukraine aid but supported Israel assistance could vote accordingly. House progressives who area disgusted with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s scorched-earth war strategy in Gaza after the October Hamas attacks but wanted to ensure President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s forces had the weapons and artillery they needed to push back against Russia’s recent gains could do the same. And members in the middle of both parties could provide the majority of the votes on all the bills to ensure they crossed the finish line.
“It was a better process to break the bills into four separate measures for consideration,” Johnson told reporters on Friday. “Because we did this process, we got a better outcome here.” (It’s doubtful the frontline soldiers in Ukraine or civilians in Gaza will see it this way.)
Before the House considered the four foreign aid bills,
he attempted to assuage his border hawks with a bill encompassing several provisions from HR 2, the House GOP’s signature border bill that passed with zero Democratic support, minus a program for employers to determine if prospective employees are eligible to work in the US plus an additional $9.5 billion for states to crack down on migration. But the bill was brought under suspension, which required a two-thirds majority vote for passage, failed 215–199 and received for less votes than HR 2.
Next, the House took up a “sidecar” bill filled with several Republican and bipartisan bills related to Russia, China and Iran—including House-passed legislation that would remove TikTok from US app stores if its China-based owner refuses to fully divest of the app within nine months. Additionally, the sidecar features a bill that would empower the president to seize Russian assets and transfer them to Ukraine.
It passed in a 360–58 vote.
After the sidecar, members then green-lit $8 billion to help Taiwan and others in the Indo-Pacific region deter aggression from China in a 385–34 vote.
The Ukraine bill followed with a 311–112 tally, providing more than $60 billion to replenish US weapons, equipment stocks and defensive capability expended on behalf or sent to the European nation. It also flags billions of dollars to procure new weapons and defensive capabilities and reinforce current US military operations in the region. The House bill allocated the money as a loan, while the Senate version provided it as a grant.
210 Democrats supported this measure with more Republicans in opposition (112) than in favor (101).
Finally, the House passed the Israel bill—legislation that appropriates over $26 billion to support Israel and provide global humanitarian assistance—in a 366–58 vote with 37 Democrats joining 21 Republicans to oppose the measure.
Johnson knew he had to act ASAP
The speaker told reporters on Friday he put forward his plan to split the Senate bill into separate measures because members of his conference were close to bucking party leadership and signing onto a rarely successful measure that would have bypassed the speaker and forced a vote on the Senate bill.
“The reality here is that if the House did not do this better policy and process, allowing for amendments on the floor, we would have had to eat the senate supplemental bill,” Johnson said. “So by doing this—even though it's not the perfect legislation, it's not the legislation that we would write if Republicans were in charge about the House and Senate in the White House—this is the best possible product that we can get under these circumstances, to take care of these really important obligations.”
Prior to the Senate bill, President Joe Biden initially requested more than $100 billion in Congress last October but House conservatives demanded the president and congressional Democrats enact a policy crackdown at the southern border to address the migrant crisis before they would approve additional aid to Ukraine.
Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) spent several months working through Thanksgiving and Christmas to reach a GOP-friendly deal with Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) that could pass the hard-right’s muster. The resulting legislation would have tightened standards to limit exploitation of the asylum system, surged law enforcement resources to the southern border, increased the number of expedited removals of migrants who unlawfully enter the US, empowered the president to close the border when the number of encounters become unmanageable for agents and invested resources to address the fentanyl epidemic.
But as the bill text was released to the public, former President Donald Trump commanded his allies in Congress to oppose the provisions they asked for because he didn’t want President Biden to notch a legislative win to bolster one of his nagging political liabilities. (Instead, House Republicans impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Senate Democrats dismissed the articles of impeachment earlier this week.)
After the border deal stalled, Johnson said the national security legislation would have to wait until Congress completed the appropriations process, one that finally concluded six months into the fiscal year.
Once the government was funded, the speaker punted the bill again in deference to the looming deadline for lawmakers to reauthorize the government’s spy powers. (The House did so last week; the Senate did so last night.)
With his centrist members and defense hawks anxious for action on the national security bill, Johnson finally rolled out his plan last Monday.
“Extreme MAGA Republicans, as we’ve observed, are out of excuses,” Jeffries told reporters on Friday. “And the American people—and our allies in Ukraine and throughout the world—are out of time in terms of our national security needs being met.”
Dems marginalize the far-right
For months, Democrats' party line was that the Senate national security bill was the only path forward. Democratic leaders estimated it would pass with more than 300 votes and go straight to the president to be signed into law.
But once Johnson announced his House plan, two events occurred: The ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus came out against it and Jeffries signaled Democrats’ openness to supporting the legislation despite moving under a different process than the Senate bill as long as it provided the same substance.
The speaker had to meet a key Democratic demand: $9 billion in humanitarian assistance for civilians in war zones, a provision several congressional Republicans were icy toward but was included in the final bill text.
This was critical since the bills were considered under regular order, they had to first be reported out of the House Rules Committee and cleared for debate and a vote by the full House.
Previous speakers have stacked the Rules panel with allies who enable them to enact their agenda. But Johnson inherited a “speaker’s committee” McCarthy assembled with enough conservatives to form a de facto veto on any measures they didn’t want to receive floor consideration.
In other words, the only way the bills could pass the Rules Committee as drafted was with the votes of the four Democratic members and a majority of the House Democratic Caucus.
Jeffries told reporters that his leadership team decided Thursday evening that Democrats would provide the votes on the procedural motions. He also said he didn’t consult with Johnson prior to the votes.
“I did not speak directly to Mike Johnson about the numbers necessary because it was pretty obvious to us given the growing number of pro-Putin Republicans in the GOP, particularly in the House of Representatives, that this was going to require substantial Democratic participation,” he said while acknowledging that the political move would have been to let House Republicans fail to pass yet another rule. “But when we say we're gonna continue to put people over politics, we actually mean it, particularly when it comes to meeting the needs of the American people both domestically and in terms of our national security. And we're going to continue to do just that.”
Johnson finds religion on Ukraine
The most striking development this week was Johnson’s public stand with Ukraine after months of acquiescence to the conservative voices in his conference who embrace Donald Trump’s isolationist approach to foreign policy.
In fact, the speaker was one of 117 Republicans who voted against sending $300 million in aid to Ukraine last September. But that was before Johnson started receiving high-level intelligence briefings that revealed how dire the situation was in the Eastern European country.
“I believe that providing lethal aid to Ukraine right now is critically important. I really do. I believe that Xi and Vladimir Putin and Iran really are an axis of evil. I think they’re in coordination on this,” Johnson said. “I think Vladimir Putin would continue to march through Europe if he were allowed. I think he might go to the [Baltic states] next. I think he might have a showdown with Poland or one of our NATO allies.”
There’s a personal connection for Johnson as well: His son will start in the Naval Academy this fall.
“To put it bluntly, I would rather send bullets to Ukraine than American boys,” he said. “This is a live-fire exercise for me as it is for so many American families.”
But Democrats were hesitant to give the speaker his flowers.
A House progressive told OUAH it was about time Johnson became fed up with being “punked” by the far-right flank of his conference but predicted it would be short-lived.
“Expectations shouldn’t be so low that we’re celebrating someone for performing the fundamental functions of the jobs,” a senior House Democratic aide said.
Meeks took particular issue with the speaker pointing to the intelligence as a key source of his decision to finally move on the bills.
“The intelligence said this long ago and to think that he ought all of a sudden had this revelation? The intelligence has been saying this all along for the last two, three months,” he said. “So we’re glad that finally he did something and stood up but this should have been done. Ukraine is now on the brink. We would be in a different place had we done this much earlier on.”
Nonetheless, Johnson's about-face on Ukraine could cost him his job. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a motion to strip him of the speakership before the Easter recess and can trigger a vote at a time of her choosing.
Johnson claimed he was unbothered by the threat from inside his conference and focused on doing his job.
“History judges us for what we do. Look, this is a critical time right now, a critical time on the world stage,” Johnson said this week. “I could make a selfish decision and do something that is different, but I’m doing here what I believe to be right.”
Greene is publicly joined by two other House Republicans who will vote to remove Johnson if he doesn’t resign. If those three members stick together, the speaker would need help from Democrats to remain in the top spot—a handful of Democrats have expressed an inclination to do so in recent weeks.
For Jeffries’s part, the top House Democrat was uninterested in telegraphing how he and his members would handle the second attempt to drive out a Republican-elected speaker of this Congress.
“We will have that conversation once the legislation has been passed and make a determination as to what happens on the other side of the aisle,” Jeffries said. “In my remarks on the House floor, I commended, by name, traditional conservatives, led by Speaker Mike Johnson, for doing the right thing.”
Following final passage of the legislation, one House Democrat called Greene a “paper tiger” who would have already called for a vote if she was serious about removing Johnson.
Schumer moves quickly to tee up Senate action
The Senate will receive the four bills as a single measure, which in theory should speed up the process in the customarily slow upper chamber.
Schumer said this morning that Senate leaders were circulating a tentative agreement among all 100 senators to allow for the first and last procedural vote to take place on Tuesday early afternoon. (If a single senator objects to the agreement, Schumer would have to schedule several additional votes to prepare the legislation for final passage.)
The majority leader could face political headwinds from the growing number of Senate Democrats, who like their House progressive colleagues, oppose unconditional aid to Israel. But most senators in both parties support Ukraine aid and most Democrats want to see humanitarian aid surged into Gaza.
If it passes the Senate, the bill will receive President Biden‘s signature.
Today, members of both parties in the House voted to advance our national security interests and send a clear message about the power of American leadership on the world stage,” he said in a statement after the votes. “At this critical inflection point, they came together to answer history’s call, passing urgently needed national security legislation that I have fought for months to secure.”
The House will be in recess next week until Apr. 29.