Sen. J.D. Vance on Wednesday encouraged a group of House Republicans to block debate on their own speaker’s foreign aid plan — an uncommon effort by a member of one chamber to sway policy across the Capitol.
Vance (R-Ohio) delivered the remarks Wednesday before the Republican Study Committee, the biggest House GOP caucus, according to three people in the room, who were granted anonymity to speak candidly about the closed-door weekly lunch.
The Ohio conservative argued that apart from pushing through aid to Israel, there’s no reason to move on any of the other aid bills — which includes aid to Ukraine and Taiwan — until House Republicans secure border security victories, one of the three people said.
Vance is one of the Hill’s most active critics of new Ukraine aid, and he joined other conservatives in opposing a border security deal that emissaries from both parties negotiated to hitch a ride on a foreign aid bill. His views got backup during the RSC meeting from Stephen Miller, a former senior adviser to Donald Trump who was the group’s other speaker.
www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/04/17/congress/vance-00152828
House Democrats are still digesting Speaker Mike Johnson’s four-part foreign aid plan, but are signaling they’re open to helping him move it.
“Let’s make sure everybody gets a chance to see it, socialize the substance of it,” said Rep. Annie Kuster (D-N.H.), chair of the centrist New Democrat Coalition. “It may not look the same, but the pieces of it are the same as the Senate supplemental. So it’s not new to us, in that sense.”
Without Democratic help, the separate aid bills for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan — which together closely mirror a bipartisan, Senate-passed foreign aid bill — have no chance at even coming up for a vote. Johnson has said he’ll move the package through the regular process, meaning it has to leap over two major hurdles before passage: the Rules Committee and a procedural vote on the floor.
www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/04/17/congress/all-eyes-on-democrats-00152800