How Congress Could Bypass Republican Opposition to Funding Ukraine

Lawmakers in the House may resort to an arcane procedural move to force action on a foreign aid bill that Speaker Johnson has suggested he would not put to a vote.

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Hard-right Republicans in the House have threatened to oust Speaker Mike Johnson if he brings the Ukraine aid legislation to the floor.

Just after dawn on Tuesday, the Senate passed a $95 billion national security package with aid to Ukraine and Israel, setting up a showdown with the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson suggested he would not bring it up for a vote.

The bill passed the Senate 70 to 29, with 22 Senate Republicans breaking with their party and joining Democrats in pushing it through. But in the Republican-led House, right-wing opposition, fueled by former President Donald J. Trump, poses a steeper challenge.

Many hard-right Republicans have consistently voted against aiding Ukraine, and threatened to oust Mr. Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, if he brought up legislation to do so.

In a statement on Monday night in the hours before the bill passed the Senate, Mr. Johnson said the House would “continue to work its own will” on national security and border policies, which Republicans had insisted be a part of the foreign aid package, before killing a bipartisan deal to address them.

That may mean that the bill’s only path through the House is for a bipartisan group of lawmakers to use an obscure maneuver known as a discharge petition to force action on it.

Here’s how it would work.

A majority of the House demands action.

A discharge petition is a demand signed by 218 members of the House — a majority of the body — to force consideration of a piece of legislation on the floor.

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