House Democrats Look to Force Vote on Ukraine, Israel Package

U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) delivers remarks after the House of Representatives elected him as Speaker of the House at the U.S. Capitol on Oct. 25, 2023. Alex Wong/Getty Images

It’s been around one month since the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, rejected a foreign aid package from the Senate that would send $95 billion to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and humanitarian assistance in Gaza.

Now, Democratic members of Congress are setting out to get enough bipartisan support to force the vote.

Their effort takes the form of a discharge position sponsored by a ranking member of the House Rules Committee, Rep. Jim McGovern (D–Mass.).

It already has 84 signatures as of this article’s publication, but it needs 218 signatures to force a vote, which means it requires Republican signatures.

“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 on March 12 during a press briefing in the Capitol.

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

The resolution for foreign aid passed the Senate with a bipartisan vote of 70–29, thanks to Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R–Ky.) and 21 other Republican senators.

However, the lower chamber offers a more complex situation. The GOP holds only a 219-212 majority, so while the required bipartisanship is minimal, the Democrats also face opposition from their own party members who have turned against providing more military aid to Israel amid the war with Hamas.

“Since October 7th, 27,478 Palestinians have been killed,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.) said while speaking against a bill that preceded the one passed by the Senate.

“Seventy percent are women and children; 136 hostages remain unrescued; most Gazans can’t access a hospital,” she said.

“That’s not war. It’s slaughter. Americans cannot afford another $17 billion on unconditional violence that risks regional war.”

The spending package is dominated by $60 billion for Ukraine, followed by $14.1 billion for Israel’s war against Hamas, $9.2 billion for humanitarian assistance to Gaza, and $4.8 billion for Taiwan and other Indo-Pacific partners in their ongoing effort to counter communist China.

Mr. Johnson refused to consider the bill on February 13 due to the lack of support for securing the U.S. border with Mexico.

“In the absence of having received any single border policy change from the Senate, the House will have to continue to work its own will on these important matters. America deserves better than the Senate’s status quo,” Mr. Johnson said in a statement the day before the Senate passed the resolution.

Republican congressmen such as Rep. Don Bacon (R–Neb.) and Rep. Andy Biggs (R–Ariz.) have said they concur with Mr. Johnson’s statements.

The GOP leader’s resistance to the package has also been called out by President Joe Biden.

“There’s no question that if the Senate bill was put on the floor in the House of Representatives, it would pass,” he said. “The speaker knows that. So, I call on the speaker to let the full House speak its mind and not allow minority or most extreme voices in the House to block this bill even from being voted on.”

The last time a discharge position was used to force a vote was in 2015 for a bill to re-authorize the Export-Import Bank of the United States.

Tom Ozimek and Emel Akan contributed to this report.