Senators who supported the defense supplemental spending bill say they are talking to their House counterparts about possibly using a discharge petition to skirt leadership and force a floor vote in that chamber.
Senate negotiators, backed by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), have worked for months on the bill, which provides $95 billion in aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Republicans opposed to the legislation used procedural tools to slow down its passage, even forcing senators to delay the start of a two-week recess, but the bill eventually cleared the upper chamber early Tuesday morning.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) won’t commit to bringing the legislation up for consideration, and both would face a reckoning from their right flank if they considered doing so. Johnson released a statement on Monday slamming the Senate for uniting around a bill that lacked border provisions despite his support for scrapping the bipartisan border security deal from the package.
“The Senate did the right thing last week by rejecting the Ukraine-Taiwan-Gaza-Israel-Immigration legislation due to its insufficient border provisions, and it should have gone back to the drawing board to amend the current bill to include real border security provisions that would actually help end the ongoing catastrophe,” Johnson said. “Instead, the Senate’s foreign aid bill is silent on the most pressing issue facing our country.”
As a result of the opposition, senators who support Ukraine aid have been discussing ways to force consideration of the bill in the lower chamber with House lawmakers.
Four GOP senators involved in the talks told the Washington Examiner that pro-Ukraine lawmakers in the House are considering a discharge petition, which can initiate a floor vote without leadership’s permission if 218 signatures are collected.
More than half of the House and a supermajority of the Senate support continued Ukraine aid, meaning there are enough signatures in the lower chamber for a discharge petition. Were House Democrats and House Republicans to deliver half of their respective 212 and 219-member conferences, lawmakers would have enough signatures to bypass Johnson.
Johnson’s office did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment on the discussions.
Democrats can almost certainly deliver more than half their House conference. It will be far more challenging for Republicans to do the same amid pressure from the right flank and former President Donald Trump not to act on anything that could benefit President Joe Biden in November.
Trump specifically called for an end to foreign aid giveaways unless assistance would be paid back in the form of a loan.
Johnson risks losing his speakership if he moves on legislation that would upset Trump and the Republican base.
A discharge petition is a rarely used tool in the House, meaning that this effort has no guarantee of success. Senators say the idea is gaining momentum because it would distance Johnson from the legislation and make it harder for detractors to blame him for the bill’s passage.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who said he was not personally involved in the talks, said the discharge petition and other options were “on the table” to get the bill to Biden’s desk.
“There’s a lot of devices over there,” Tillis told the Washington Examiner on Monday evening. “And I believe that there are a lot of members, Republican members, that believe that we should move forward with some form of aid.”
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Republicans in both chambers have pushed back on the notion that Ukraine aid has any path to passage in the House, which Republicans control by a slim margin.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) dismissed the idea while speaking to reporters on Monday evening, saying he had spoken to colleagues in the House who “believe a discharge petition is fantasy.”
