Fourteen House members — eight Republicans and six Democrats — have signed a petition that would force a floor vote on military support for Ukraine and enhanced U.S. southern border security. They need 204 more signatures to make it happen. Even if organizers don’t get the 218 members necessary to move forward, this bipartisan endeavor might pressure Mr. Johnson, at last, to cut a deal.
This kind of parliamentary maneuver, known as a discharge petition, rarely succeeds because of arduous procedural requirements and the risks of defying party chiefs. The most recent successful one came in 2015, when 42 Republicans joined Democrats to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank. Before that, a 2002 discharge petition enabled the House to pass the McCain-Feingold campaign finance overhaul.
Senate leaders understandably see no need for such unconventional tactics: They want the House to take up their $95 billion aid bill. House Democrats are trying to force this bill to the floor. Unfortunately, their maneuvering is unlikely to work, because not enough House members support the Senate bill.
So Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) — a former FBI agent who worked against Russian spies in Ukraine — and Don Bacon (R-Neb.) recruited Reps. Ed Case (D-Hawaii) and Jared Golden (D-Maine) for the bipartisan discharge petition. Its more modest foreign-assistance provisions — $48 billion in military, but not economic, assistance plus money for Israel and Indo-Pacific operations — come attached to legal tools, good for one year, that would help the president stem migration across the southern border. The idea is that a consensus could form for a “skinny” bill that meets each side’s core needs. Republicans involved in the discharge effort say GOP House members, including some in leadership, have privately urged them on.
Mr. Johnson faces the threat of ouster from the far right of his conference if he brings the Senate bill to the floor, yet has been sounding a more hopeful tone in recent days. He says he’s determined to help Ukraine after funding the government next week. Speaking to Senate Republicans, Mr. Johnson floated the idea of providing aid to Ukraine as a loan, not a grant, or seizing Russian assets to pay for weapons for Ukraine. The former, a sop to likely GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, who first suggested the idea, is at least potentially workable, but only if the loans are 100 percent forgivable and not overly burdensome. Seizing Russia’s Central Bank assets, about $300 billion currently frozen by Western banks, could create a dangerous precedent and undermine American leadership of the global financial system. It would also be logistically challenging and might further delay getting help to the battlefield.
Amid the inaction, Ukraine is running out of ammunition and rationing air defense weapons, putting civilians in greater danger. Two years after Russia’s full-scale invasion, the country suffers from war fatigue and faces an internal debate about calling up younger troops. Observing the deadlocked war from the Vatican, Pope Francis said during an interview published last weekend that it would be courageous for Ukraine to raise “the white flag” by negotiating a settlement to the war. Alas, the pontiff probably speaks for many in the world who do not grasp what is really at stake in this struggle and simplistically favor peace even at the price of failing to thwart Russian President Vladimir Putin’s imperial ambitions.
If he hasn’t already seen it, the pope could benefit from viewing the Oscar winner for best documentary feature, “20 Days in Mariupol,” which captures the terror and trauma of Russia’s siege of that Ukrainian port city. Wavering U.S. lawmakers might watch it, too. Mr. Putin seeks not peace but conquest, and, like the pope’s ill-chosen words, Washington’s dysfunction emboldens Moscow. Mr. Putin told state television this week that it would be “somewhat ridiculous on our part” to negotiate with Ukraine when its “running out of ammunition.” It would be worse than ridiculous on Congress’s part if lawmakers fail to meet this challenge.
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