Watching the sausage made: what happened to the border bill?
This:
The House of Representatives on April 20 rejected another border security bill.
A person might be forgiven if, on reading that, he or she concludes that Republicans didn’t favor it. After all, the GOP controls the House (although barely), right? So shouldn’t it have passed, if the GOP members all voted “yes”?
But here’s why it didn’t pass:
In a vote under suspension of the rules, the House voted 215–199 to block the bill. Because it was not considered under normal rules, it required a two-thirds majority to pass.
The bill was supported by all Republicans and was opposed by all but a handful of Democrats. Five Democrats joined Republicans in supporting the bill. But Republican support alone was not enough to push it over the finish line with the higher threshold.
Well now, that’s certainly interesting. So, why was the bill considered under rules that required two-thirds, rather than normal rules? Again, one would think it could be considered normally, since the GOP controls the House (although I repeat: only barely).
Here’s the rest of the story:
The legislation was considered under suspension of the rules because it had been blocked by conservatives on the House Rules Committee last week in protest to leadership’s decision to move forward on foreign aid legislation.
So it was blocked by the most conservative wing, who wanted to link it to foreign aid and use that as leverage to pass it. As Chip Roy said:
In a post to X, formerly known as Twitter, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas)—among those who blocked the bill in the Rules Committee—said, “Sorry, not sorry, for opposing a crappy rule that is a show vote/cover vote for funding Ukraine instead of border security.”
The move came after House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) reneged on an earlier promise to not put Ukraine funding on the floor without border concessions from Democrats.
The reality is that Israeli aid has majority bipartisan support although quite a few Democrats oppose it. The reality is that Ukraine aid has majority bipartisan support although quite a few Republicans oppose it. And the reality is that border security has majority support although most Democrats oppose it. Therefore, all three bills would pass by themselves in the House if they came up for simple majority vote. But a border security bill would die in the Senate, although the foreign aid bills would pass.
And that’s why what I’ll call the Chip Roy wing wanted border security tied to foreign aid – the idea being that such an approach would be the only way to pressure Schumer to let it through. But he knows his own power, and I think it highly unlikely that he would have done so, and then the GOP would have been blamed not only for stiffing Ukraine in its hour of need – but for doing the same to Israel if border security were tied to Israeli aid as well.
Many on the Roy wing call what Johnson did “theater,” and want him gone:
The move received criticism from some of Mr. Johnson’s peers in the House, who have dismissed the tagalong border bill as “theatrics.”
“It’s a theatrics, shiny object; it’s the shiny object for Republicans that are saying, ‘We got to do something for the border,’” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said to the media following the bill’s unveiling.
Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), chair of the House Freedom Caucus, called it “a joke,” “pretend,” and “theater.”
But I contend that what they have been doing on these issues is an even more “pretend” form of theater. They are pretending that somehow a combined bill would have passed the Senate and been signed by Biden, and that Johnson is just stubbornly thwarting them.
For example:
Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) argued that Mr. Johnson should have put a clean Israel bill on the floor and attached a “Remain in Mexico” policy requirement to Ukraine legislation.
Does Ogles think that such a bill, if it passed the House (which it probably would have), would have passed the Senate or even been put to a Senate vote by Schumer? I don’t think so, and as I already said, the failure to support Ukraine in such a bill would have been blamed – successfully – on the GOP. That might have been popular with conservatives, but aid to Ukraine still has majority popular support.
And all three measures – Israeli aid, Ukraine aid, and border security – have majority support in Congress. Just not from the same people. And all three measures would have been passed as standalone bills if border security hadn’t been blocked by the conservatives in the House, forcing it to get a 2/3 vote in order to pass. But although Israel aid and Ukraine aid would also pass in the Senate and be signed by Biden, border security would not. And IMHO that is true whether border security was in a standalone ill or linked with the foreign aid, as the conservatives wished. And so the conservatives didn’t get what they wanted – border security. But they also would not have gotten what they wanted if all three had been linked, and they would have been blamed for abandoning Israel and/or Ukraine in the process.
They don’t see it that way. But I think they believe they have far more power to force the hand of the Democrats than they actually do.
The negotiations on these issues have been especially complicated and hard to follow. But I think it’s incorrect to believe there was a solution in which the conservatives could have gotten what they wanted. For example, this was the situation as it stood on April 14 (remarks in brackets are mine):
The House initially passed its GOP-led Israel support package days after Johnson was elected speaker in October. The package, which paired $14.3 billion in aid to Israel with cuts to IRS funding, was deemed dead on arrival in the Democratic-led Senate and President Joe Biden vowed to veto it.
Then, in February, the House failed to pass a stand-alone Israel aid bill without those IRS cuts, with many Republicans voting with Democrats to defeat the effort.
That same month, the Senate passed a $95 billion national security package that included aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, but Johnson rejected the deal after killing a bipartisan effort in the Senate to address security at the U.S.-Mexico border [that was a terrible “effort” that would have done nothing to improve the border situation]. And, under pressure from GOP hard-liners who have warned him that tying Ukraine aid to the bill could prove detrimental to his speakership, Johnson has yet to address aid to the war-town country months later. …
“We cannot hope to deter conflict without demonstrating resolve and investing seriously in American strength. The Commander-in-Chief and the Congress must discharge our fundamental duties without delay,” he said of the package that ties aid to Ukraine and Israel. “The consequences of failure are clear, devastating, and avoidable.”
Most people probably are unaware that the aid to Ukraine in the bill that was actually passed was in the form of something Trump had proposed, a “forgivable loan”:
Last week, the factions in the U.S. Congress finally hit on a compromise: military and financial assistance to Ukraine is to be provided in the form of a “forgivable loan.” President Zelensky has agreed to such a compromise solution.
I previously wrote about the “forgivable loan” concept in this post and the comments that follow.
Took me a year (2002/2003) to figure out how moronic the GOP was – went NPA by next voting date, and have voted against Democrats & not for Republicans ever since.
Yeah, wishy-washy, but Trump did manage to stay silent during that vote. Trump has had a grudge against Ukraine ever since they didn’t help him hang Joe Biden. He’s gonna have to come out w/ a strong statement of support for Ukraine in order for me to vote a third time for him…
So in point of fact the invasion continues thanks to the refugee funding the depletion of our arsenal continues the harassing of israel continues so there is no incentive to vote republican
I fault Speaker Johnson for not offering single issue bills. Let the Democrats go on record refusing to pass a bill strictly for border security. I see no rationale, no downside for the Republican House in doing so.
I do see a possible reason for not including border security within this bill. Which is that Trump supported passage of this bill because he judges that Biden and the democrat’s failure to secure the border, will greatly help him in November.
That said, Trump would be even more helped, if Johnson offered a single border security bill that the democrats turned down. Perhaps Trump is afraid that they would pass a border security bill and that, no matter what the bill’s provisions, if Biden is reelected none of the provisions will be implemented or enforced.
Many would argue that point
The House had previously passed HR2 The Secure the Border Act of 2023 in May of last year.
So it all would have been for show. I suppose it’s something they could bring up and pass once a month to keep the issue alive, and that they are doing their jobs.
Until Republicans have a majority in all three branches, codifying some of the Trump executive orders doesn’t have a chance of passing.
The GOP House has an absolute veto on all spending, black letter in the Constitution. They choose not to use it.
They whip their caucus to find billions to help secure Ukraine’s border, they whip their caucus to find billions to help secure Israel’s border, but they don’t to help secure our border.
As an American, securing America’s border is of primary importance to me and any other country’s at best secondary. But spending on Ukraine’s and Israel’s borders delivers tax money to GOP cronies and spending on our border does not.
The GOP has to be held accountable by GOP voters for better performance than giving the Dems half (or more) of what they want. (Especially when they hold, as they do, an absolute veto on all spending.) Or nothing will change.
I have eyes to see what the Dems are doing for their base, and what the GOP fails to do for its base. The Dems use every weapon they have, but the GOP does not. The GOP’s last 40 years have been very good for the Swamp but not so good for the GOP’s base. We will not get different results doing what we’ve been doing.
Kicking a few of the worst squishes off the taxpayer trough would help the others get their minds right.
There is no cavalry coming to save us if all the GOP, as currently constituted, can do is delay the Left’s victories by a few years or a few hundred million.
That is the antithesis of a strategy, to keep voting GOP and hope they finally keep some of their promises. The endgame there is, at best, the Left waits another ten years for everything they want, and the GOP officeholders and their cronies get fat from our tax money. Works out well for them and their conservative media talking heads, which is why they continue to say that’s what we need to do and make endless excuses for why no majority was big enough to keep a promise.
Geoffey Britain:
You write:
You seem to be unaware of what has actually occurred regarding standalone border bills. Have you researched what the House actually did, or do you think you already know? Take a look at what happened in May of 2023. That’s nearly a year ago:
Guess what? Schumer killed it in the Senate; it was never even taken up. You wrote:
Funny thing; that already happened (under Kevin McCarthy), but you don’t seem aware of it. And I bet most people complaining that it didn’t happen also aren’t aware that it did happen.
What is the point of a majority the dems
know to loot the country to allow the invasion to arm our enemies
“Funny thing; that already happened (under Kevin McCarthy), but you don’t seem aware of it. And I bet most people complaining that it didn’t happen also aren’t aware that it did happen.”
Of course they’re not aware of it- job #1 of the US media is to make sure nothing comes to the public’s attention that would reflect poorly on a Democrat!
That’s why I often think fondly about a slight modification to the quote from Shakespeare’s Henry VI… “SECOND, we kill all the lawyers!”
MIguel cervantes:
I don’t know what your question means.
But I’ll take a guess and answer that without the Senate and the presidency, a GOP majority in the House is very limited in its power, and the present majority is so thin it requires near-unanimity to do just about anything.
One thing the GOP majority in the House is good for, however, is blocking the most egregiously-awful legislation the Democrats would otherwise be passing: HR1, making DC a state, a national voting bill that loosens all security for voting, and a host of other things. A GOP House majority has also investigated some issues that the Democrats wouldn’t have touched with a 10-foot pole.
I don’t think the House Republicans do have much power. They only have a one vote majority now, and the GOP has more renegades than the Democrats. I was surprised to hear that House Republicans actually had been able to pass a border security bill — I didn’t think they could get their stuff together enough to do that — but I wasn’t at all surprised that the Senate rejected it. Biden wouldn’t have enforced it anyway.
One thing I’m hearing now is that Ukraine’s borders are also our borders. That sounds like an unbelievably spurious argument to me, but DOD, the CIA, and the big defense contractors have big influence in Congress.
Ray Van Dune:
I agree that the leftist-biased MSM doesn’t ever want to say anything that reflects well on the GOP, but there are other sources of news. In this case, however, the MSM did cover it, but in the sense of: those mean old Republicans are cruel to asylum seekers, etc..
I also think that, before a person says that such-and-such didn’t happen, it’s probably a good idea to check and see whether it did or didn’t happen. The internet makes that relatively easy. But we often assume if we didn’t hear about something then it never happened.
Abraxis:
And Vlad’s influence in the far right is miniscule? Ask Tucker and LT. Col. Macgreggor.
Isolationism sells.
Before Trump, support for forever wars was mostly bipartisan. Now Republican devotees to the military industrial complex are a minority in their party, joining with today’s rabid hawk Democrats to keep the gravy flowing.
While we are all occupied shooting at each other in our usual circular firing squad, let us not forget that the border issue was one that the Biden cabal stirred up by eliminating the Trump EO’s like “Remain in Mexico,” which had demonstrably reduced the inflow to a trickle. That same cabal could, if it wished, return to the status quo ante but has chosen instead to eliminate all barriers to the influx of foreign invaders in order to assure its political ascendancy. Are we not amused?
“The move came after House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) reneged on an earlier promise to not put Ukraine funding on the floor without border concessions from Democrats.”
And therein lies a big part of the problem among “the base”.
I was raised to believe that a man’s word is his bond and a promise is utterly binding. I very, very rarely promise anything, I never make promises unless I’m 100% certain I can keep them and when I make a promise, you can believe that the only way what I promised to do won’t get done is if I’m dead.
I don’t think I’m rare in the “republican base”. I have no use for anyone who doesn’t keep a promise. If Johnson wasn’t devoted to the cause of linking border security to foreign aid, he shouldn’t have made those promises.
Johnson has proven himself to be the most despicable of human beings and the worst type of politician: he says what he thinks you want to hear to get your support and then stabs you in the back when it’s politically expedient to do so.
He needs to go.
The ones who drove out george santos then proceeded to drop out in violation of their oath are firing the muskets
Mccarthy enabled the coverup that robbed many of their liberties that allowed a cloud on matt gaetz
The “My way or the highway!” approach to politics returns. Herding of cats pary.
Who knew that Johnson was worse than Illan
Ohmar or OAC or Nancy Pelosi. Republicans actually need to be led by Democrats because Democrats are better people. (sarc x 11)
Johnson was lobbied by Pompeo and the CIA before he changed his mind.
A border bill wouldn’t have done anything. Even if such a bill were to pass both the House and Senate, the White House is still the body charged with enforcing the border. And it refuses to do so. Nothing would change if the bill passed.
@Om
To use your terms, Vlad and isolationism may have some influence on the far right internet, but I doubt they influenced the mass of Republicans in Congress. Surely, there is a middle way between provoking and throwing oneself into foreign conflicts on the one hand and complete isolation on the other, and surely there’s a point when one realizes that a war can’t be won and has to be wound up somehow.
I don’t believe that the House Republicans have even reached that point yet. They wanted to get the border fixed and wanted to use Ukraine aid as a lever to get that done, and couldn’t even manage that. On the other hand, the influence of the military-industrial complex on Democrats and some Republicans has been clear.
Abraxas:
They couldn’t manage it because they do not control the Senate, and because they have such a razor-thin margin in the House and it would require 100% support there. And even then – as I said – it would just be theater because it wouldn’t pass in the Senate because Chuck Schumer would not bring it to a vote.
Explain how they could have “managed” to do it, with the numbers being as they are. Be angry at the Democrats rather than the Republicans.
And reasonable people differ on whether it is time to give up on Ukraine.
I happen to think that we are occupying that middle ground on supporting Ukraine. We are not fighting there with boots on the ground, and we won’t be.
junior:
I’m inclined to agree with you – although it might depend on whether court challenges to Biden’s non-compliance would be successful. Such cases would probably end up in SCOTUS.