Johnson proposes build-a-bill voting on foreign aid

In addition to a flurry of Iran-centric legislation, GOP House leaders on Monday laid out a series of four foreign aid bills it will consider this week: one each for assistance to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan and a final bill on a set of unspecified defense measures. The text of the measures has not yet been released.

Shortly after the meeting where Speaker Mike Johnson announced the plan, Rep. Marcus Molinaro, R-N.Y., said he’d support the idea.

“I think that what the speaker has laid out is a very democratic approach,” Molinaro said. “We have four very important measures, and members should vote their conscience and their constituency. But when America blinks, our enemies take advantage.”

He said he intends to vote for the Ukraine and Israel packages.

Before the four bills reach the floor, lawmakers must first vote on a parliamentary rule that sets the parameters for debate and what amendments, if any, will be up for consideration. If lawmakers pass the rule, then the House will vote on all four bills separately. The rule’s failure would block all four bills from consideration.

The manner in which the speaker brings the votes to the floor might seem like a mundane parliamentary detail. But the individual bills have the potential to do more than split up the allocation of foreign aid. They could help Johnson break a stalemate between conservatives and moderates who have refused to vote for combined aid packages that don’t meet their specific demands.

Following an Iranian missile campaign against Israel over the weekend, lawmakers from both parties want the United States to do more to help Israel defend itself. Some members of Congress would see this as a chance to get additional aid approved for Ukraine, something many conservatives in the House oppose.

The House Freedom Caucus, a group of the most conservative members in the chamber, released a statement on Monday titled, “Don’t play Ukraine Politics with Israel Aid.”

“Under no circumstances will the House Freedom Caucus abide using the emergency situation in Israel as a bogus justification to ram through Ukraine aid with no offset and no security for our own wide-open borders,” the group’s letter stated.

I asked Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., chairman of the Freedom Caucus, if Johnson did the right thing by including a Ukraine bill in the tranche of foreign aid measures. If the bill reached the floor and won the support of all 213 Democrats, it would only take a handful of Republican votes to ensure its passage—even if a majority of the Republican conference voted against it.

“I think it’s good that we’re going to have four separate bills instead of one bill together, yes,” Good said. “Many of us have recognized that with a minority of Republican votes and a majority of Democrat votes, Ukraine funding has a good opportunity to pass. Let’s wait and see. I won’t speak to it hypothetically.”

Members of the House Freedom Caucus also expressed frustrations that the speaker didn’t include a fifth bill on border security. When asked if there were underlying tensions because of any border language omission, Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C., replied, “That would be the understatement of the year.”

As laid out now, the proposed parliamentary rule would have the House hold four separate votes, one for each bill. Depending on its language, the rule could also fuse them back together after the House passes them, forcing the Senate to take them up as one inseparable bloc. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., sees that as an opportunity for Republicans to force the Senate to consider some of their priorities while also sending them a foreign aid bundle.

“I’m trying to cajole some action from the Senate on energy production and on the border prior to the transmission of that legislation. And I’ve got to tell you in conservations with a lot of my colleagues, [the idea] has been quite popular,” Gaetz said.

Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., said Johnson’s four-bill plan and Gaetz’s idea were both good strategy.

“I think it’s the only way to do it; to separate the bills. Frankly, America hates when we cram about 3,000 pages into something. This way you get to vote for the individual bills, and I think the American public responds positively to that,” Burchett said.

Although Johnson has hinted that he hopes to bring the rule to the floor soon, he hasn’t provided a timeline on when that might happen.