April 16, 2024: Unanswered Questions About Speaker Johnson’s Foreign Aid Play

 
 

Over the weekend, Iran launched its first-ever direct attack on Israel in response to an Israeli strike on Iran’s embassy in Syria, prompting renewed calls for Congressional action on stalled national security funding. Last night, House Speaker Mike Johnson outlined a plan to get that funding over the finish line, but several questions remain. Here’s what you need to know. 

Speaker Johnson’s plan: turn one task into four tasks. 

Reminder: in February, the Senate passed a $95 billion package containing $60 billion to assist Ukraine, $14 billion for Israel, $9 billion in humanitarian aid—including for Gaza—and $4.8 billion for U.S. allies in the Indo-Pacific region. A bipartisan coalition approved the bill by a 70-29 vote. 

Speaker Johnson has refused to allow a House vote on the Senate package because it lacks border security measures (even though Republicans blocked a version that included border policy changes). However, the Speaker changed his tune yesterday. 

Under Speaker Johnson’s new proposal, the House would take separate votes on aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, respectively. The House would also vote on a package of miscellaneous GOP-backed policies, including economic and humanitarian loans for Ukraine, Russian asset seizure, and the so-called TikTok ban the House passed previously. The four bills would then be bundled together and sent to the Senate for approval. The Speaker aims to finish House votes this week before a weeklong recess.  

Questions to watch

At first glance, the Speaker’s gambit could allow him to have his cake and eat it too. He alleviates mounting pressure to aid U.S. allies while keeping his promise to not advance the Senate package. However, several key questions remain. Here are some to watch.  

  • Can the House clear the procedural hurdles necessary to debate these bills? The Speaker wants to move his proposal via regular order (that is, requiring a simple majority vote to pass). To do this, the House must first approve a “rule” that sets parameters for debate. The rule vote is often party-line. However, House Republicans who don’t like the Speaker’s plan could oppose the rule and stop it before it’s even debated on its merits—unless Democrats step in. 

    Minority members supporting the majority-crafted rule is almost unheard of—but not entirely. Last year, 52 House Democrats voted for the rule that allowed debate on the Fiscal Responsibility Act to avoid a catastrophic debt default. Some Democrats may decide, again, that the stakes are high enough to merit the unusual move. Those decisions will hinge on various factors, including how strongly the White House pushes to get this aid over the finish line and whether Democratic leaders extract any concessions in exchange for supporting Johnson’s gambit. 

  • Will the separate aid bills mirror the Senate package—and would changes help or hinder passage? It’s unclear whether the individual Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan aid bills will look exactly like the Senate package’s components. For example, will the Speaker provide Senate-approved humanitarian aid for Gaza, where the USAID administrator has recognized a famine? Any changes could spell trouble in the Senate, whereas Senators might not need much convincing to vote for the same policies they supported before. The TikTok provision’s addition, for example, could prompt opposition from the Senate’s Commerce Committee chair.

    At the same time, the world has changed since the Senate’s vote in February, which could bolster the case for modifying the Senate’s approach. For instance, in the wake of an Israeli strike that killed seven World Central Kitchen staff earlier this month, more Democrats have asserted the need for conditions on aid to Israel. While the Speaker isn’t likely to propose that particular change, the point remains that there are no easy answers to fine-tuning this proposal: some changes will win votes, others will lose them. And on the subject of changes…

  • How do amendments factor in? House Members will undoubtedly seek amendments, some of which will be germane (Congressional parlance for “relevant”) to the package while others won’t. The Speaker can dispense with the latter on procedural grounds, but the others must be carefully calibrated to protect the coalitions necessary to pass each of the four proposed bills. In particular, the Speaker will have to navigate anticipated GOP demands for some kind of border provision. 

  • How does timing change things? Congress has a recess coming, and between Passover and election year campaigning, Members will loathe to miss it. If the Speaker cannot get these bills through the House this week, he could be looking at a weeklong pause—which could be the death knell for his proposal. First, the more time passes, the more Members will hear from stakeholders who could convince them to block the aid package. See, for example, former President Trump’s interference with the Speaker’s FISA proposal just last week. 

    Second, while this weekend’s attack has stoked fears of a wider regional war, some analysts have suggested Iran’s actions may have been designed to respond to Israel’s embassy strike earlier this month while avoiding an increasingly high-stakes conflict. Simultaneously, President Biden has reportedly urged Israel to refrain from further escalation. So, there’s a chance the situation deescalates from here. If so, lawmakers could feel less pressured to get aid to Israel ASAP—and to swallow policies they don’t like. 

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Cat Rowland