The House is voting Friday on whether to proceed with Speaker Mike Johnson’s $95 billion foreign aid plan after it cleared the first key procedural hurdle with support from Democrats.
Friday morning’s vote is a kind of test vote on the four foreign aid bills, known as a “rules vote.” If passed, lawmakers would be able to debate each of the four separate bills and vote on final passage on Saturday.
Three of the four bills provide funding to Ukraine, Israel, and the Indo-Pacific. The fourth bill includes national security priorities that the House recently passed, including a crackdown on TikTok ownership and the REPO Act, which would liquidate seized Russian assets and give the funds to Ukraine.
Democrats had to work together Thursday night to salvage the Republican-led proposal in the face of conservative opposition. The Rules Committee, traditionally the last stop before a bill is voted on by the full House, spent the entire day considering the bill before advancing the “rules” package on a 9-3 vote.
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House Speaker Mike Johnson will hold trial vote on foreign aid bill Friday (Getty Images)
It is highly unusual for Democrats and opposition parties to cross the aisle not only in a House-wide rules vote but also in a rules committee vote. But it underscores the urgency that lawmakers in both countries feel in sending aid to foreign allies.
The three conservative members of the committee are Rep. Chip Roy (R., Texas), Rep. Thomas Massie (R., Ky.), and Rep. Ralph Norman (R.C.). — all voted against the bill. Similar unconventional moves have become commonplace in the 118th Congress, with members of the House Freedom Caucus and their allies hoping that by blocking such procedural hurdles, the Republican majority is exerting tremendous influence. Democratic support will be critical to the adoption and adoption of the rules. It is possible that the bill will eventually be passed.
Johnson faces fierce backlash from the right wing of the conference over much of his plan, particularly the $60 billion loan to Ukraine, which has become a politically thorny topic for many Republicans.
Those same foreign aid hawks object to some of the Israeli funding being aimed at humanitarian aid in Gaza, but its inclusion was important to win Democratic support. But the Republican victory will block Israeli and Gazan funds from going to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), a Palestinian refugee agency with suspected ties to Hamas.
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Rep. Chip Roy was one of the Republicans who voted against the proposal in committee.
Conservative rebels also criticized House Republican leadership’s decision to combine four bills into one before sending it to the Senate, which the Democratic-controlled Congress passed earlier this year and House Republicans passed. They argued that it was the same amount as the $95 billion foreign aid package they are opposing. Mr. Johnson argued that compiling the bills for the Senate would prevent the Israel bill from being ignored at a time when the issue is dividing the Democratic Party.
Mr Massey earlier this week threatened to oust Mr Johnson from the Speaker’s post if he did not resign after bringing the foreign aid plan to a vote in the House of Commons. A Republican lawmaker who was present at the closed-door meeting where the incident occurred told Fox News Digital on Tuesday that Johnson asked him to do it.
Mr. Massey has now signed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s motion to rescind the resolution, and the House will vote on the possible expulsion of Mr. Johnson within two legislative days if Mr. Greene deems it a “privilege.” will start.
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Meanwhile, MPs Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massey have threatened to expel Johnson over the plan. (Getty Images)
Some debate over whether to raise the threshold needed to invoke a motion to resign (currently only one lawmaker can call a motion) has infuriated Republican rebels and led to renewed threats of expulsion. It ended with Prime Minister Boris Johnson reversing the controversial move.
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House Minority Leader Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana) earlier suggested to reporters that a wide range of rank-and-file Republicans support the idea. But Johnson denied he had had any such conversations when asked by Fox News Digital earlier Thursday.
“Recently, a number of members of Congress have encouraged me to support new rules to raise this standard. While I understand the importance of that idea, changing the rules requires a majority of the entire House. We need it, but we don’t have it. We will continue to govern under the ‘existing rules,”’ Johnson said on Thursday night.
