House lawmakers have no immediate plans to reconsider a sweeping farm bill that conservatives and Democrats defeated last week, leaving the legislation in limbo for the foreseeable future.
The House this week will vote on a series of measures related to veterans issues timed to coincide with Memorial Day, which is on May 28. The House will also take up the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act.
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The House is out of session next week and is not back until June 5, and the farm bill is nowhere in sight. Floor schedulers won’t say when, or if, the farm bill will be reconsidered during the June work period.
[Opinion: Farm Bill’s defeat is a huge win for the welfare state]
Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., called up the bill for a second vote after it failed on Friday, but nobody knows when the vote will take place.
“This is less a question of votes needed and more a question of tactics being used for unrelated matters,” a GOP leadership aide told the Washington Examiner. “The farm bill will come back up again for a vote, but not this week.”
The House voted 198-213 Friday to defeat the 2018 Agriculture and Nutrition Act, a five-year, $868 billion bill authorizing farm programs and policy, as well as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, otherwise known as SNAP or food stamps.
Democrats voted in unison against the bill because they opposed increased work requirements for food stamps that were included in the measure. A group of conservatives also voted no, but their opposition had nothing to do with the legislation. They want the House to bring a passable immigration reform bill to the House floor, which is something that has eluded the House GOP for years.
Without support from Democrats and the faction of conservatives, the farm bill is stuck in limbo, at least for now and perhaps until the fall, if the floor schedule gets jammed with spending bills in the coming weeks, as it typically does this time of year.
The current farm bill does not expire until Sept. 30, which gives lawmakers months to find a path to pass the bill.
“What we can do now is take the next days, weeks, month, and really work with moderates to find a solution we can pass,” an aide to a GOP conservative negotiating on immigration told the Washington Examiner.
Moderates are trying to force the House to vote on a trio of immigration proposals through a discharge petition. The effort requires 218 signatures. Proponents say they have the names locked up, but the petition currently has 196 signatures and only a few remaining days this year that it can be brought up for a vote under strict House rules.
House Agriculture Committee Chairman Mike Conaway, R-Texas, is far from giving up on passing the farm bill, which the GOP believes can pass once the immigration logjam is resolved.
A committee aide said there is a possibility Conaway could push for a vote this week, although that option is less likely. Mid-June is the next target date, the aide said.
One option that is not on the table is splitting up the bill so that the food stamp title is considered separately. The House used that approach in 2013 when conservatives balked at the cost of the overall bill and Democrats opposed a similar work requirement provision for food stamp recipients.
“The farm bill has a lot of paths forward, and we’re currently considering the best options,” the GOP committee aide told the Washington Examiner. “Obviously, what happened last week had nothing to do with the bill, it got caught up in the discussions on immigration. But we remain committed to getting this done, it’s just a matter of when.”
