Speaker Johnson pressured in fight over Ukraine aid

A fight is brewing between lawmakers wanting to send more money to Ukraine and House Speaker Mike Johnson, who hasn’t guaranteed a vote on foreign aid despite pressure to decide.

Mr. Johnson has refused to put the Senate’s $96 billion bill on the floor, spurring two proposals in the House: one from a group of moderate Republicans and Democrats, the other from Republican committee chairs involved with national security.

The bill from two Republican moderates, Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania is a pared-down, $66 billion measure that would send military aid to Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific and includes the Trump-era Remain in Mexico border policy as a sweetener.

Mr. Fitzpatrick is using the threat of a discharge petition, which forces bills for a vote without the grace of House leadership, to get Mr. Johnson to play ball. The lawmaker was confident that they could have the necessary 218 signatures to move ahead with the petition.

His willingness to circumvent the speaker’s authority underscores the urgency that some in Congress feel to get Ukraine more funds, but Mr. Johnson, Louisiana Republican, doesn’t want such a move.

“I’m certainly discouraging a discharge,” he told Punchbowl News. “I don’t think that’s a norm that we want to break in the institution. And I’m working actively against that.”

Mr. Bacon told The Washington Times that members of the speaker’s leadership team have signaled that Mr. Johnson wants to wait until after Congress wraps up the fiscal 2024 spending cycle before moving on to a foreign aid and border bill. Congress cleared funding Friday for half the government and has until March 22 to fund the remaining agencies.

Mr. Bacon has not publicly endorsed his colleague’s attempts to use a discharge petition and stressed that he wants a guarantee from the speaker that there would be a vote on a “reasonable” foreign aid bill that wouldn’t be immediately rejected by Democrats.

“If he looks me in the eyes and says, ‘Don, I will put a bill on the floor,’ I’m not gonna push the discharge, but if he says, ‘Don, I can’t guarantee it,’ I’d feel differently,” Mr. Bacon said.  

Democrats have a problem with the legislation because it strips out humanitarian aid for civilians in Gaza in favor of military-only funding.

“There’s not a dime of humanitarian assistance in the legislation that has been introduced by Rep. Fitzpatrick, so that’s a nonstarter for the House Democratic Caucus,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, New York Democrat, told reporters.

Democrats, including the White House, heavily favor the Senate’s bill that includes humanitarian aid, which Mr. Johnson has decided not to put on the floor for a vote because it lacks border security measures.  

Meanwhile, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael T. McCaul, Texas Republican, also working on a foreign aid and border security bill, has urged his colleagues not to undermine Mr. Johnson.

Like Mr. Bacon, the lawmaker thinks a foreign aid bill could be put on the floor after March 22, but the speaker has still not made any assurances to either group.

Mr. McCaul said his bill would make Ukraine aid more palatable for Republicans who have pushed against more money being sent to the country without an endgame plan from the White House.

He wants his aid bill to include another measure of his, the Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity for Ukrainians Act, which would use assets confiscated from the Central Bank of the Russian Federation and other Russian assets to offset Ukraine aid.

Mr. McCaul said the House would produce legislation that he sees moving through both chambers and stressed that Congress couldn’t “waste any more time” in getting aid to Ukraine.  

“We’re not interested in a pingpong match. We want to have a bill that’s solid that we can pass here, and I believe we can, and send it over to the Senate and go to the White House,” Mr. McCaul said. “It’s urgent in Ukraine. We can’t waste anymore time.”