Senate Conservatives Call on GOP to Sink House Speaker’s Ukraine Strategy

Senate conservatives led by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) urged House Republicans to oppose what they called a “sham” procedural tactic developed by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to split a package of emergency outside help in four different parts to give it a better chance of getting through.

Senate conservatives have warned that this would result in the House passing an emergency foreign aid package “nearly identical” to the $95 billion relief bill that the Senate approved in February and which a majority of Republican senators opposed. The project includes funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

“Members who vote in favor of the rule to establish this sham process will be effectively supporting the supplemental Senate approval that the majority of the Senate Republican conference has already rejected and signaling to leadership that it is okay to crush the priorities of rank-and-file members through this process. misleading,” the senators wrote in a letter sent to their House Republican colleagues on Thursday.

Senators Mike Braun (R-Ind.), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) signed the letter along with Lee.

On Friday morning, 55 House Republicans voted against the rule to begin floor debate on the four-part emergency foreign aid package.

The rule passed anyway because, in an unusual move, House Democrats intervened to save Johnson from losing the crucial vote. It ended up passing with a large bipartisan majority, 316 to 94.

Lee and other Senate conservatives have warned that the rule will allow the House to approve the four different elements of its foreign aid package separately and then combine them into a single package and send it to the Senate.

“The rule allows the people’s representatives to vote individually on bills for Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel, which are then combined into a single legislative vehicle, without having to vote on the final combined package,” the senators wrote. “This tactic was a favorite of Speaker Pelosi, who used it at least three times to promote the Democrats’ most controversial policies.”

They said Johnson’s strategy would not require border security provisions long demanded by many Republicans to accompany Ukraine funding.

“The watered-down border security provisions would be sent to the Senate in a separate legislative vehicle that would simply gather dust [Senate Majority Leader Chuck] Schumer [D-N.Y.] table and will never be considered on the floor,” they wrote.