A sweeping emergency aid bill for Ukraine and Israel passed the Senate on Thursday, offering glimmers of hope for the measure after a series of setbacks.
But hurdles remained as Republicans made slow progress, demanding changes and arguing internally over whether to support them.
In a bipartisan show of support, the Senate voted 67-32 to pass the bill, with 17 Republicans joining Democrats to advance it. The legislation would provide $60.1 billion for Ukraine, $14.1 billion for Israel and $10 billion in humanitarian aid for civilians in global conflicts. However, many Republicans still withheld support as they called for changes to the package, and many others strongly opposed it.
“We hope to reach agreement with our Republican colleagues on the amendments,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and majority leader. “We will continue to work on this bill until the job is done.”
Some predicted Senate deliberations could last days, and leaders in both parties expected to spend the weekend sorting out remaining disputes. If it survives and passes, the bill still faces significant challenges in the House, where a large group of Republicans vehemently oppose it. Still, supporters of the measure said Thursday’s action suggests that the relief package, which has been stalled for months, could finally find a path to approval in Congress.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the vote “a very important first step to continue supporting Ukraine’s victory and increasing our common security,” in a social media post in which he wrote: “This is a bad day for Putin, but a good day for democracies.”
Among other things, Senate Republicans are insisting on the possibility of adding border restrictions to the package – even though they voted on Wednesday to block a version of the bill that included a bipartisan package of border restrictions. They spent much of Thursday haggling over what changes to seek.
The slow pace was the latest expression of the discord that has roiled the GOP and jeopardized the emergency national security spending law. Republicans have been at odds over how to handle international crises without angering their party’s leader and its likely presidential nominee, former President Donald J. Trump.
Senate Republicans had initially signaled early Wednesday that they would likely support moving forward with a clean foreign aid bill without border provisions as long as they had the opportunity to propose changes, terms that Mr. Schumer agreed in principle. Leaders on both sides were optimistic that they had enough support to move the measure forward quickly.
But their optimism soon gave way to frustration as Republicans fell into familiar mode, torn between rival factions and completely unable to decide how to proceed. They spent much of Wednesday afternoon and evening arguing over which amendments they should insist on — and some quietly argued they shouldn’t allow the bill to move forward at all.
As of Thursday morning, Republican senators still had not agreed on how to proceed. Still, a midday vote removed an immediate obstacle and allowed advocates to breathe a momentary sigh of relief as they worked to close the remaining gap.
Republican senators are divided. Some strongly support providing new military aid to help Ukraine fend off a Russian invasion, while right-wing senators strongly oppose it. And some Republican senators who support the aid still worry that doing so without demanding a price from Democrats would put them at political risk in an election year, given Mr. Trump’s opposition to supporting the war effort Ukraine.
“It’s exactly what Putin hopes won’t be addressed this week, and I’ll do everything I can to prevent it,” said one of them, Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina.
But other Republicans who have pushed for aid to Ukraine continued to withhold support. They included Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and James Lankford of Oklahoma. Mr. Lankford spent the last four months negotiating a bipartisan deal to link Ukraine funding to border security measures, a compromise that Republicans had demanded but that Republicans rejected on Wednesday.
“You have hurt the Ukraine cause by trying to short-circuit the border debate,” Graham said on the Senate floor, even though he voted Wednesday to scrap the Ukraine aid and border agreement. “You may be able to pass this bill without limits, but it’s going nowhere in the House.”
Border-related amendments that Republicans introduced included a measure that mirrored Mr. Lankford’s border agreement and a tougher immigration enforcement law that House Republicans passed last spring. Mr. Graham also wanted a change to limit the number of migrants who could be paroled into the United States to 10,000 a year.
There were also discussions about an attempt to revoke or change the Flores agreement, which sets limits on how long children can be held in detention centers, according to Senate aides, who described the discussions on condition of anonymity because no decision has been made on it yet whether the proposal should be pursued further.
Senator Dan Sullivan, Republican of Alaska, who voted to advance the measure on Thursday, said he also wanted to vote on cutting the humanitarian aid portion of the bill, which would help Ukrainian and Palestinian civilians.
Other Republicans said they would oppose the measure no matter what changes were made to it.
“That would be window dressing,” Senator Mike Braun, Republican of Indiana, said of the changes being discussed.
The Democrats also have a wish list of changes. Nearly 20 Democratic senators, most of them from the party’s left wing, have signed onto a proposal that would require security aid recipients to use weapons in accordance with U.S. law, international humanitarian law and the laws of armed conflict – and not impede efforts to send humanitarian aid to the civilian population. Although the measure does not specifically mention Israel, it was inspired by senators’ concerns about that country’s bombing of the Gaza Strip, which violates international law.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who has opposed providing unconditional military aid to Israel amid the huge civilian death toll in Gaza, voted against the bill.
Republican opponents vowed to make the process of passing the measure as lengthy and painful as possible.
“I will insist on this every minute of every day,” said Sen. Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky. “I want to be here for a week because I want to talk about what a disaster the bill is and what a mistake it is to send our money to other countries before we solve our own problems here.”
Carl Hulse contributed reporting.
Source link
2024-02-09 02:13:32
www.nytimes.com
