House votes to advance foreign aid bills, despite GOP defections

Democrats helped Speaker Mike Johnson avoid a defeat, teeing up a Saturday vote.

The House on Friday cleared a key procedural hurdle in passing foreign aid to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, despite dozens of Republican defections, with Democrats helping Speaker Mike Johnson avoid a defeat.

The chamber voted 316-94 to advance the bills, setting up a Saturday vote on final passage of $95 billion in foreign assistance that has been held up in a political fight in Washington for several months.

Such procedural votes are typically passed by the House majority alone, but Democrats stepped in to help push the legislation forward after Republican hard-liners collectively opposed the measure. More Democrats voted to advance the bills than Republicans.

“Democrats, once again, will be the adults in the room,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., during debate ahead of the vote.

The individual bills provide roughly $26 billion for Israel, $61 billion for Ukraine and $8 billion for the Indo-Pacific. The measures are similar to legislation passed by a bipartisan group in the Senate back in February, which tied all aid together into one measure.

paddirn,

That headline should read “House votes to advance foreign aid bills, despite GOP oral defecations”

empireOfLove2,
@empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I can’t say I’m happy about Israel funding- but seeing what dysfunctional bullshit we’re working with, if it means getting actual supplies to Ukraine, it’s worth it

mozz,
@mozz@mbin.grits.dev avatar

As I understand it, the bills are separated from each other, meaning the senate or Biden could in theory reject Israel aid and approve Ukraine aid.

Congress has a page set up to contact your senators -- obviously, they don't read them individually or anything, but their staff as I understand it totals up what's coming in and presents them with a summary of how people feel about things.

I sent both of my senators a note asking them not to provide aid to Israel and concisely explaining why. I don't expect it to make a difference, but it seemed better to do it than not.

empireOfLove2,
@empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

This is true. I might try and do that on lunch break actually.

There’s nothing much for the senate to lose if they do reject Israel aid, so the potential to apply pressure there is real… but it might cause problems with Biden since he is still keeping his weight behind Netanyahu.
That said, I don’t think Biden is stupid enough to use the same GOP tactic of hamstringing the other aid because the stuff he does want isn’t included, ideally he’ll take whatever win he can grab (as he should).

MagicShel,

As I understand it, the senate has already passed the joint bill, so they can only change things so much before everything has to be thrown out for a do over. But I don’t know exactly what the rules are. This might not be possible, but I’d support it off it is.

mozz,
@mozz@mbin.grits.dev avatar

I think it's 4 bills:

  • One for Israel + various humanitarian aid worldwide
  • One for Ukraine
  • One for "Indo-Pacific" (Taiwan + misc), also including banning TikTok? I couldn't completely make sense of how things were split up
  • One for sanctions on Iran and Russia, and confiscating sanctioned Russian assets to give to Ukraine

I think the expectation is to vote on all tomorrow, but they separated Ukraine and Israel to avoid holding up one thing because of arguing about a different thing. I think

MagicShel,

The senate has already passed these measures (except TikTok ban) as a single bill. They are limited in how much they can change their bill as they reconcile their version with the four house bills. At least that’s how it was explained to me by someone who understands the process better than I do. I’m not a slouch when it comes to civics but I admit I’m no expert on the arcane rules of the house and senate.

mozz,
@mozz@mbin.grits.dev avatar

Hm... you could be right which would be sad. I thought it was different but I'm by no means sure and I can't really make head or tail of anything I could find on congress's web site.

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