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Speaker Mike Johnson Relies on Minority Party Votes to Advance Foreign Aid Plan

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) made historical past Thursday night time simply earlier than midnight by basically surrendering Republican majority management to Democrats.

For the primary time in recorded historical past — because the House started holding information — the House Rules Committee relied on minority celebration votes to overcome objections from the bulk and advance a rule invoice to the House ground.

The committee voted 9 to three, with all 4 Democrats on the committee voting with 5 Republicans to transfer a rule to the House ground, which, if handed with Democrat support as anticipated, would permit votes on Johnson’s international assist bundle, together with a invoice that features tens of billions to fund Ukraine.

Conservative Reps. Chip Roy (R-TX), Thomas Massie (R-KY), and Ralph Norman (R-SC) voted no.

The Speaker is about to use Democrats to ram his #AmericaLast international wars bundle (w/ zero border safety) via the Rules Committee over opposition by @chiproytx, @RepThomasMassie & @RepRalphNorman.

A Speaker has NEVER used the minority to steamroll his personal celebration in Rules.

— House Freedom Caucus (@freedomcaucus) April 18, 2024

The highly effective House Rules Committee, recognized for generations as “the Speaker’s committee” for the management the Speaker of the House possesses over the committee and its popularity as a rubber stamp for the Speaker’s agenda, units the ground agenda for the House by means of what are often called guidelines.

Well, this appears to be the primary time in recorded historical past* that minority members of the Rules Committee voted in favour of reporting a rule to make up for majority votes in opposition to it.

* – i.e., since 1995 😁
(If you are going to quote this, please do not miss this asterisk.) https://t.co/zMPKC7Wtme

— ringwiss (@ringwiss) April 19, 2024

Rules don’t merely permit votes on payments. The difficult, convoluted language of the eight-page rule, as with many guidelines, deliberately deflects from what the rule does.

For instance, after questioning from Massie, Chairman Michael Burgess (R-TX) acknowledged the rule accommodates language that merges the 4 payments collectively, sending the completely different parts collectively as one bundle to the Senate as a part of Johnson’s difficult scheme to exploit the urgency to go assist to Israel to guarantee Ukraine funding can go Congress.

“The four bills that we’ve heard testimony on today will be transmitted to the senate as an amendment to the underlying bill,” Burgess mentioned, acknowledging the underlying invoice itself was an unrelated “veterans bill.”

Bradley Jaye is a Capitol Hill Correspondent for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter at @BradleyAJaye.

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