Foreign Aid Bill Passes Senate, Faces Uphill Battle In House

The fate of a major package of foreign aid, including $60 billion for Ukraine, is now in the hands of House leadership, which is indicating it has no intention of taking up the measure.

The national security package, up until last week, included a significant U.S. border security piece, negotiated by Oklahoma Senator James Lankford. But Senate Republicans, for various reasons convinced it didn't go far enough, worried about the political timing, and misinformed about its content -- shot it down, leading to this effort to pass the foreign aid portion by itself. "I support Ukraine, support Ukraine," said Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) in an interview Friday, "I always have--haven’t changed."

But Senator Mullin made clear last week he wanted some amendments to the bill and says Leader Schumer’s "partisan, one-sided approach" to moving the aid bill through the Senate without allowing amendments made it impossible for him to support it. "Senate Republicans have been working overtime to offer significant amendments to the supplemental package," Mullin said in a statement Monday. "Unfortunately, Chuck Schumer refused to allow us the opportunity to improve this legislation and give it a chance of passing the House."

Senator Lankford, who had been prepared to support the aid, in conjunction with the border and asylum changes he spent four months working on, was also a no-vote. “I believe we should support our allies,” Lankford said in a statement, “but we cannot secure the borders of other nations while ignoring the massive crisis at our border.”

22 Republicans joined Democrats in sending the bill, 70-29, over to the House, where Speaker Johnson has indicated it will not get a vote because it has no border security component. "House Republicans were crystal clear," Johnson (R-LA) said in a statement, "that any so-called national security supplemental legislation must recognize national security begins at our own border."

The fact that it was arch-conservatives who killed the border component is not lost on Democrats or on President Biden, who said Monday the bill would pass in the House if given a chance. "And the Speaker knows that," the President told reporters. "So, I call on the Speaker to let the full House speak its mind and not allow a minority of most extreme voices in the House to block this bill even from being voted on."

Democrats in the House, meanwhile, are considering how they might be able to force the bill to the floor for a vote, possibly through what's known as a discharge petition. They would need Republican help but might be able to get it.