Old fights resurface while lawmakers await foreign aid plan from Speaker Johnson

Familiar lines in the sand have bogged down House Speaker Mike Johnson’s push for a four-piece foreign aid plan for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

Bill text for his program was expected to be released Tuesday, but never came. Instead, Mr. Johnson, Louisiana Republican, was busy meeting with factions throughout the House GOP airing concerns or making demands.

Many of those wishes were made months ago when the House and Senate debated a $96 billion foreign aid package. Now conservatives are again pressing the speaker to include border security measures from the GOP’s Secure the Border Act and calling for the plan to be paid for.

Mr. Johnson has stressed the urgency to get his plan wrapped and ready for a floor vote this week, spurred by Iran’s attack on Israel, ahead of another weeklong recess. While getting aid to Israel has been necessitated by Iranian aggression, some Republicans and all Democrats urgently want more money for Ukraine, saying it’s in dire straits as Russia advances through the country.

But some Republicans want to make sure the plan doesn’t waste taxpayer money.

“We need to do it right,” said Rep. Bob Good, Virginia Republican. “[And] not be in a hurry to do it wrong.”

Mr. Good and other conservatives from the House Freedom Caucus want a stripped-down version of Mr. Johnson’s plan, like the Israel aid component being paid for and a military-only Ukraine aid bill.

Other Republicans, most notably Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, want no more money going to what they call a corrupt Ukraine.

The House passed an Israel aid bill last year, but Senate Democrats and the White House rejected it because of cuts from the Biden administration’s IRS slush fund to pay for the spending legislation.

If Mr. Johnson doesn’t include border security policy, a contingent of Republicans won’t back his plan at all.

“The fact is not having the border in this plan is wholly unacceptable; it’s not acceptable,” said Texas Rep. Chip Roy. “So the speaker knows that. That is not just me speaking, it’s not just the Freedom Caucus speaking, that’s not even just kind of his right flank speaking; virtually every Republican recognizes the need to do that.”

That means Mr. Johnson would need Democrats to get the four-piece package through a procedural hurdle. That move would put even more strain on his relationship with the House GOP, where Ms. Greene and Thomas Massie of Kentucky have joined forces to dangle a motion to vacate the chair threat over his head.

Democratic support comes at the cost of not including poison pill policy riders, like elements of the Secure the Border Act. Rep. James McGovern, Massachusetts Democrat and a strong proponent of Ukraine aid, urged Mr. Johnson to do the “right thing.”

“Can’t they just do the right thing for once, you know, and there’s no political advantage for Johnson,” Mr. McGovern said. “There are already people on his side that want to see him go.”

Meanwhile, the slowdown in Mr. Johnson’s plan has some Republicans antsy to move without him and sign off on Mr. McGovern’s petition to force a vote on the Senate’s foreign aid package, which the speaker has refused to bring to the floor because it lacked more-stringent border security policy.

Time is running out for the House to move on foreign aid this week, especially if the speaker intends to adhere to an oft-ignored rule to give lawmakers 72 hours to comb through bills before voting on them.

“He’s conflicted,” Rep. Ralph Norman, South Carolina Republican, said. “I think he’s really trying to decide what to do.”