Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has unveiled an outline of his plan to keep foreign aid flowing through the House of Representatives, introducing four separate bills to address aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and other national security priorities, of which he says they will all get votes before the end of the House. the week.
The strategy drew immediate opposition from some conservative lawmakers who demanded that any additional aid to Ukraine be accompanied by tighter security measures at the U.S.-Mexico border — proposals excluded from Johnson’s legislative blueprint — raising questions about the feasibility of the plans. the speaker.
“A lot of conservatives are very angry about the way this is going to happen,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). “He literally broke his promise.”
Johnson presented his proposal Monday at a closed-door Republican Party meeting in the Capitol basement, after months of delaying decisions on a politically thorny issue that has splintered his party and threatened his gavel.
The plan is primarily to introduce a procedural rule governing all four bills – Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan will each get their own law, with the fourth focusing on national security priorities. Each proposal would then be voted on separately, unlike the Senate’s $95 billion foreign aid legislation, which combined the various elements into one package.
The fourth national security bill, Johnson said, will include a proposal to help pay for aid to Ukraine by seizing Russian assets; a plan to provide some of the aid in the form of loans; and new sanctions on Iran in the wake of Tehran’s weekend attacks on Israel.
Another Republican lawmaker said it would also include a TikTok ban and convertible loans for humanitarian aid.
Johnson’s piecemeal strategy offers the unique advantage of giving lawmakers the opportunity to choose which pieces of the Senate bill to support and which to oppose. To sweeten the deal, he is allowing amendments to be submitted to each proposal.
“My phone melted this weekend with all the members telling me all their ideas,” Johnson told reporters after the closed-door meeting. “There was, in my opinion, a consensus that was recognized from all the opinions that were shared, and that is that it was really the will of my colleagues to vote on these measures independently and not lump them all together, like the Senate had done. finished.”
Johnson said the text of the bills will be released “sometime sooner” on Tuesday, and that he will adhere to a House rule that gives lawmakers 72 hours to examine the bills before asking them to vote on them — a timeline that House in Washington at least until Friday, which is a day later than planned.
Still, the plan remains in flux, and there are plenty of questions surrounding the legislation, including how far the House of Representatives proposals would differ from the Senate’s top spending bill and whether the four bills would be sent to the Senate separately. , or recombined and delivered as one package.
Another major wildcard is how Democrats will respond to Johnson’s proposal. Democrats in both chambers are adamant that they want the House to take up the Senate-passed supplemental amendment, a position that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) only resumed on Monday morning.
Some top Democrats, while still awaiting the details of the bills, have expressed early reservations about Johnson’s strategy, not least because it means additional aid to Ukraine’s beleaguered armed forces will be delayed while both chambers next week on recess.
‘They didn’t come up with it [legislation] not yet, and we don’t have time. We do not. So I’m very skeptical,” said Rep. Adam Smith (Wash.), senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee. “Ukraine is on life support and it seems like they are getting ready to pull the plug here. Not so much as pulling the plug. They trip over the plug. It’s not even necessarily intentional, it’s just a failure to understand the gravity of the situation and the importance of the timing.”
The Republican response to Johnson’s commitment to foreign aid was a mixed bag Monday, with some hardline conservatives praising his decision to split the priorities into separate bills and include an open amendment process, while also railing about the exclusion of border security.
“I like that Johnson separated them,” Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) said after leaving the GOP conference behind closed doors, before calling the omission of border security “terrible.”
“The border must be the priority,” he added. “How many times have you heard leadership and other Republicans say, ‘Hey, this is the hill we’re going to die on, right?’ And now it’s just gone. So I don’t like that.”
Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, echoed that sentiment, praising the separation of priorities and the plan for an amendment process while criticizing the lack of border security.
“The American people will be very disappointed if we don’t need border security to fund Ukraine, because we’ve basically said for the last six months that we were going to do that,” he said.
During Monday’s Republican meeting, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) urged Republican leaders to hold on to the foreign aid bills — even if they pass this week — before sending them to the Senate to put pressure on Democratic leaders in the Senate to adopt the law. The House approved border reforms that excluded Johnson from the foreign aid debate.
“We should not send any aid to other countries until the Senate takes up HR-2,” Gaetz said afterward, referring to a GOP border bill passed by the House of Representatives last year.
Other Republicans joined in the criticism, including Greene, who has threatened to force a vote on impeaching Johnson over support for Ukraine.
Speaking to reporters after the conference, Greene said: “I am firmly opposed to the plan as it stands,” but did not reveal details about when – or if – she plans to initiate her resolution to remove Johnson.
“I haven’t made a decision on that yet,” she said, but argued that Johnson “absolutely will not be president of the next Congress if we are fortunate enough to have the majority.”
When asked if he will chair the rest of this Congress, Greene said, “That is yet to be determined, as I said, I’m still processing what I heard there.”
And some kept their cards close to their chest and didn’t show where they stood as they digested the proposal and waited to parse the details.
“We’ll see,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) told reporters when asked for his thoughts on the plan.
Johnson’s foreign aid plan will be put to the first test when the House of Representatives holds a procedural vote to open debate on the bills. Votes on rules – which determine the debate on legislation – are usually mundane, party-line procedures, with the majority party voting in favor and the minority party voting in opposition.
But hard-line conservatives in this Congress have gathered line votes to protest several decisions by the Republican leadership, a possibility as the House prepares to pass foreign aid legislation.
Crane, who has opposed floor rules in the past, told reporters “we’ll see” when asked if he would support the procedural vote, and Good said: “I’m going to wait to see what the rule looks like sees.”
Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) said he won’t support the rule unless the foreign aid legislation addresses the situation at the southern border and includes H.R. 1, the House GOP’s comprehensive energy package that he said could help pay for the foreign staff .
Updated at 9:58 PM
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