House Republicans took a crucial step late Thursday night to bring up the long-stalled foreign aid bill for Ukraine and Israel, after being forced to rely on Democratic votes to pass a plan to bring this law from an important committee to the plenary session to examine this law.
The 9-3 vote in the crucial Rules Committee was a first step in the complicated process the House is expected to go through in the next few days to approve the $95 billion relief package. It reflected the level of far-right anger over Speaker Mike Johnson’s plan to push the bill through opposition from ultra-conservative Republicans and underscored how heavily the speaker will have to rely on Democrats to get the bill across the finish line.
In a fit of anger, three right-wing Republicans on the panel that controls what legislation goes to the House of Representatives refused to support the regulation needed to advance the foreign aid bill, sending it to committee passage. But Democrats on the panel stepped in to save the whole thing, representing an extraordinary breach of morals.
All Democrats voted to advance the plan out of committee.
The Rules Committee is traditionally a body of the Speaker, and the bill is typically presented on a straight party-line vote.
Democrats will certainly need to muster the votes in the House to approve the rule and allow the relief package to go forward, showing their support in another unorthodox vote against Republican opposition.
The rule is crucial to Mr. Johnson’s plan to push the foreign aid package through the House of Representatives because it would allow separate votes on aid to Israel and aid to Ukraine, which are supported by different coalitions, but would then combine them , without requiring a legislature to ever cast a positive or negative vote on the entire bill.
The group of right-wing lawmakers seeking to block the measure in committee won their seats on the regulatory body as part of a concession last year by then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who had to bargain with ultra-conservatives who opposed his election to the top post and agreed to to support him only after he had given them decisive influence. They declined to support the measure establishing the foreign aid package because it would not allow a vote on strict border security provisions, which they said should take precedence over aid to Ukraine.
That amounted to a remarkable act of rebellion, leaving Democrats to rescue the speaker and push the measure through the panel.
Mr Johnson previously said he expected a vote in the House of Representatives to pass the aid package on Saturday.
“I’d rather send bullets to Ukraine than American guys,” he said in an interview on Newsmax Thursday night. “We don’t want to have ground troops, and we can prevent that by allowing them to keep Putin in check.”
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2024-04-19 04:35:09
www.nytimes.com
