As House Speaker Mike Johnson presses ahead with his four-part foreign aid proposal amid Republican in-fighting, a much-needed Democratic bail-out may no longer be in the cards.
House Democrats on Thursday signaled a willingness to keep their options open when it comes to the bills and to saving Johnson from a potential effort to oust him from his post. Following a closed-door caucus meeting, party leaders urged members to adopt a wait-and-see position.
House Minority Whip Katherine Clark of Massachusetts told members during the meeting to avoid boxing themselves in with a public statement on a bail-out. Similarly, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York told members to stay united but cool on the package, opting not to give any marching orders.
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Unlike in October, when the party remained united against helping defeat the motion to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, many are split over whether to help Johnson. While establishment Democrats insist that saving him could prevent the lower chamber from completely succumbing to the chaos that has marked this session, progressives argue that saving him could put them at odds with their base – something they want to avoid going into this year’s contentious election.
Democrats Apprehensive About Helping
Signs of a potential change in position came Wednesday afternoon after Jeffries declined to say if Democrats would help. Since then, several have placed conditions on lending their assistance to Johnson. Democratic Rep. Sara Jacobs of California said her vote to spare him would be based on his aid to Ukraine passing.
“If Speaker Johnson wants to talk to Hakeem Jeffries, I think we’d be open to something like that. But I don’t think any of that will be possible unless Ukraine funding is passed,” Jacobs said. “I think we would need to see Ukraine funding passed before anything else.”
If Democrats do indeed opt to throw Johnson a lifeline during upcoming votes now looking as if they will come this weekend, it would mark the second time in two months Republicans would have to depend on assistance from across the aisle to rescue them. That lifeline might be needed more than ever as more Republicans continue to defect from Johnson’s aid bills.
GOP In-Fighting Threatens Johnson’s Future
Following extreme discontent over his lack of border security provisions in the four foreign aid bills, Johnson went back to the drawing board and released an additional bill on that subject. He said the bill would move separately as the lower chamber considers the other measures.
But the proposal drew ire almost immediately, with some party members calling it a “joke” and “theatrics.”
The House Freedom Caucus, which has been highly critical of Johnson, also came out strongly against the proposal, saying the border bill has to be directly linked to the aid to Ukraine. The group began circulating a memo Wednesday evening to all Republican House offices urging them to vote against the rule that would permit the legislation to be considered in the House.
One member, Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, said that he was “well past the point of giving grace here. We are going to have some conversations. I don’t want to get in front of everything here. I need to go have the conversations I need to go have, but it is not good.”
With opposition growing and a tiny majority, Johnson will almost certainly have to turn to Democrats to support aid to Ukraine. One thing working in his favor, Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin – whose retirement was scheduled to take effect Friday – has said he has the flexibility to remain in his position if a vote slips to Saturday. But Johnson will likely also need Democrats’ votes on the procedural motion to bring the bill to the floor, an action rarely taken by a minority party in the lower chamber.
Looming Motion To Vacate Picks Up More Momentum
If the foreign aid package does indeed come down to across-the-aisle assistance, Johnson will require Democrats’ help a third time as he will almost certainly face a motion to vacate. The motion, filed by Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green of Georgia and Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, comes after both accused Johnson of working for the Democrats and their leader in the Senate.
“We’re steering toward everything Chuck Schumer wants,” Massie said Tuesday.
When asked if he would support the motion Thursday, Roy said that, while he still needed more time, “it is not good.”
Johnson is currently being pressured to consider a change to the threshold for filing a motion to vacate. As part of McCarthy’s agreement to become speaker last year, the lower chamber changed its rule to allow a single member to challenge the speaker’s job with the motion. The change is what eventually ousted him after Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz filed the motion.
Many of Johnson’s allies are now urging him to consider editing the language to force more people to sign on in order to save the House from falling apart completely. But Johnson has not said whether he would actually consider that change.
“There’s a lot of interest amongst our members – I’d say that the vast majority of our conference – supports a higher threshold,” Republican House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana said Thursday. He added that the time to do it has “gotta be determined,” adding that “it’s something that members are talking about a lot.”
But any consideration of edits to the threshold could hand Johnson a powerful poison pill that could land him in a worse position than McCarthy.
To protect its leverage over Johnson, the Freedom Caucus set up a group called Freedom Caucus’ Floor Action Response Team – FART – Thursday afternoon. Members of the caucus then began signing up for shifts to monitor the chamber floor to prevent party leaders from introducing a voice vote or unanimous consent vote that would hurt the group’s power.
Following a tense exchange on the House floor, Gaetz signaled his openness to supporting the motion to vacate if the threshold is messed with, saying, “I didn’t support the motion to vacate when I woke up this morning.”
“My hope was that the motion to vacate would be an elixir that only required one dose for effectiveness. But sometimes there are some therapies that require more than one dose. And I hope that’s not the case with the motion to vacate, but we’ll administer the elixir as many times as is necessary to save the country.”
Gaetz then got into a heated argument with Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin, who he said “kept demanding” that he and the others file the vacate motion. Gaetz said it was “puzzling and concerning that Rep. Van Orden repeatedly was insisting that we call a motion to vacate to the floor. He was demanding it in kind of an unhinged way.” Tensions then hit a high point when Van Orden called Gaetz “tubby.”
Johnson then ended all possibility of a change in the threshold, writing on social media, “Recently, many members have encouraged me to endorse a new rule to raise this threshold. While I understand the importance of that idea, any rule change requires a majority of the full House, which we do not have.”
He added that “since the beginning of the 118th Congress, the House rule allowing a Motion to Vacate from a single member has harmed this office and our House majority.”
As Johnson continues to be backed into a corner with a ticking clock, his only hope to prevent him from ending up like McCarthy may end up being sympathetic Democrats.