Democrats launch effort to force vote on Ukraine

House Democrats on Tuesday formally launched their promised effort to force a vote on Ukraine aid, a long-shot bid to compel the legislation to the floor over the objection of the Republican leaders who control the chamber. 

Sponsored by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), ranking member of the House Rules Committee, the Democrats’ discharge petition would require 218 signatures to force consideration of a Senate-passed foreign aid package, which provides $95 billion for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and humanitarian assistance in Gaza. 

The Senate had passed the bill last month by a vote of 70-29, with 22 Republicans — including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — supporting the legislation. 

But the proposal has hit a brick wall in the lower chamber, where Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has refused to consider it, citing the absence of language to strengthen security on the U.S.-Mexico border.

To break the logjam, McGovern and Democratic leaders are hoping to find enough bipartisan support for the discharge petition to sidestep Johnson’s opposition and bring the Senate bill to the floor, where they predict it would pass easily with more than 300 votes.

“What we are asking our colleagues — Democrats and Republicans — is to sign the discharge petition that will bring to the floor the Senate national security bipartisan supplemental,” Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), chair of the House Democratic Caucus, said Tuesday during a press briefing in the Capitol.

“That is the fastest and easiest way to solve this issue.”

The success rate of discharge petitions, however, is extremely low — the last one to force a bill to the floor occurred in 2015 — and it’s far from certain that Democrats will win the 218 signatures they’re after. 

Some liberal Democrats are already balking at the idea of providing more military aid to Israel — as the Senate bill does — amid a war with Hamas that’s already killed more than 30,000 people in Gaza. Those lawmakers want conditions put on that aid, ensuring Israel complies with international human rights guidelines. 

Across the aisle, meanwhile, even moderate Republicans — those deemed most likely to endorse McGovern’s discharge petition — are hammering the Democrats’ strategy of insisting on the Senate’s version of the foreign aid package. Those voices say no Ukraine aid can pass through the House without tougher border security. 

“It’s DOA, it’ll never get on the floor,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.). 

“You got to have ‘remain in Mexico,’” he added, referring to a Trump-era policy that restricted the flow of migrants across the border into the U.S. “We’re gonna have to do some kind of border security policy. And it’s $95 billion, and I think the poor side of the aisle feels like that’s too much money.”

The issue of Ukraine has divided Republicans, both on and off of Capitol Hill, pitting veteran institutionalists like McConnell, who support a muscular foreign policy, against a more isolationist group, led by former President Trump, that wants Washington to direct its resources more squarely on internal domestic problems.

Hoping to bridge that divide is Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), who has introduced his own discharge petition designed to force a vote on a broader Ukraine package that includes the border security provisions many Republicans are demanding. 

“It is an unsustainable argument, either in the short-term or the long-term, that we’re going to defend the borders of our foreign allies but not our own,” Fitzpatrick said last week. 

That proposal has already won the support of a handful of moderate Democrats, who are warning that their approach is the only viable way to get more Ukraine aid to President Biden’s desk this year. 

“Right now, ours is the only one that has bipartisan support,”  Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), one of the lead sponsors of the Fitzpatrick bill, told reporters last week. “There’s no support for the Senate-passed bill when it comes to a strategy focused on a discharge petition.” 

Yet Democratic leaders are warning that Ukraine — which is under siege from Russian forces and running low on ammunition —  simply doesn’t have the time to wait for Congress to bounce competing bills back and forth between the two chambers.  

“These are well-meaning members. But we disagree that that is the right solution,” Aguilar said of those pushing Fitzpatrick’s approach. “Under any scenario, that bill, that discharge, would force a vote on something that still has to go to the U.S. Senate. And that could take weeks or months to deliver the critical aid that’s necessary.”

Mychael Schnell contributed.