The bipartisan bill combining an overhaul of US immigration policy and security measures at the US-Mexico border with nearly $100bn in foreign aid on Wednesday has failed to garner enough votes to move forward in the US Senate, although voting continued.
More details as they happen. There are already 49 No votes. Sixty Yes votes in the 100-strong chamber are needed to pass bills.
Frustration as GOP rejects a bipartisan border compromise, only to demand another
If you’re just catching up on today’s senate Republican vote to reject a bipartisan border deal, followed by GOP demands that amendments with border provisions be allowed for a standalone foreign military aid bill, here are some perspectives:
And from a bit earlier:
Still waiting on a senate vote on $95bn foreign aid package
This is Lois Beckett, picking up our live politics coverage from Los Angeles.
We are still waiting on a vote to see whether the senate will proceed with debate over a proposed $95b military assistance bill for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan.
Some details on the current conversations among Republican senators from Punchbowl News and HuffPost:
The focus will shift to the US supreme court tomorrow, where justices will consider a case challenging Donald Trump’s ability to appear on presidential ballots, after advocacy groups argued his involvement in the January 6 insurrection should disqualify him. Here’s the Guardian’s Rachel Leingang with more on those efforts:
A US supreme court case that could remove Donald Trump from the 2024 presidential ballot is the culmination of several years of work by left-leaning watchdog groups to reinvigorate the 14th amendment and its power.
A Colorado case that found Trump couldn’t run for re-election there was filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew), though other groups and individuals have filed lawsuits and petitions in many states trying to remove Trump under the 14th amendment’s third clause. The clause says that people who were in office and participated in an insurrection against the US can’t hold office again.
Some of the challenges have gone through the courts, while others have appealed directly to elections officials in charge of placing candidates on the ballot. Colorado was the first ruling to decide against Trump, so it is headed to the supreme court at the former president’s behest. Because of how consequential and rare the issue is, it was expected that the high court would eventually be the arbiter of how the clause applied in the modern era.
The Senate is now voting on whether to begin debate on the $95b military assistance bill for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan.
That vote needs only a simple majority to succeed, but the story doesn’t end there. Fox News reports that Democrats want the measure to pass quickly, but, as with most legislation in the Senate, will need at least nine Republican votes to do that. The GOP is demanding that majority leader Chuck Schumer allow amendments be made to the bill – including some measures dealing with immigration, even after the party just a few minutes ago voted down a bill to make major changes to how the US deals with migrants and asylum seekers:
As we wait to find out if Republicans will vote to provide military aid to Ukraine and Israel without hardline border policies, Punchbowl News reports that a key GOP lawmaker is warning that approving the bill could hurt the party’s chances in the November elections.
That’s the argument made in a party strategy meeting by senator Steve Daines of Montana, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which is tasked with winning the party seats in Congress’s upper chamber:
Republicans are tipped to retake control of the Senate in November. For Democrats to maintain their one-seat majority, Joe Biden would have to win re-election, and the party would have to win two of the three seats they are defending representing Ohio, West Virginia and Montana – all red states. That’s assuming their lawmakers in safer seats are re-elected, and the Democrats fail to defeat Republican senators representing Texas, Florida, or any other red state.
The bipartisan bill combining an overhaul of US immigration policy and security measures at the US-Mexico border with nearly $100bn in foreign aid on Wednesday has failed to garner enough votes to move forward in the US Senate, although voting continued.
More details as they happen. There are already 49 No votes. Sixty Yes votes in the 100-strong chamber are needed to pass bills.
The White House is focused on getting a Ukraine aid package through the US Congress, the White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Wednesday, adding there was no “plan B”, Reuters reports.
We believe we still can and will deliver aid for Ukraine,” Sullivan told reporters during a joint press conference with the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg.
Stoltenberg said it was vital Congress agreed on continued support for Ukraine in the near future.
Stoltenberg said there was no imminent threat to any Nato ally, but added:
We must sustain our support and that is a responsibility for all allies.”
The US Senate is currently voting on the bipartisan border and foreign aid bill that a group of lawmakers has been working on for months and unveiled on Sunday. But the bill appears doomed, despite Republicans having insisted on immigration reform to tighten security at the US-Mexico border. Legislation needs 60 votes to pass the 100-member Senate, where Democrats hold a wafter-thin majority, so GOP support is needed to pass bills.
Arizona independent US senator Kyrsten Sinema just told the chamber that the Republican abandonment of efforts to pass immigration reform legislation was “shameful”.
Sinema (who switched from the Democratic party to become an independent not long after the midterm elections in 2022, when Republicans won control of the House), said that many Republican senators may just want to ignore a bill involving tightening border security, but Arizona could not afford that as it is dealing with the increase in migration every day.
Republican senator James Lankford of Oklahoma spoke on the floor of the Senate moments ago to say that Americans were telling Congress to “do something” about the increase in migration at the US-Mexico border.
“We have to decide if we are going to do that or not, if we are going to do nothing, or do something,” he said.
He said the bill that looks doomed is “a bill put together by a bipartisan effort – welcome to the US Senate”.
Lankford worked across the aisle with Democrats Patty Murray and Chris Murphy and independent senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona to prepare the complex bill that implements immigration reforms, toughens the US-Mexico border, and funds more aid for Ukraine, Israel and allies in the Indo-Pacific region such as Taiwan. At almost 400 pages, he said it took months of complicated work.
But he said he had Republican colleagues who believed lies they read on social media rather than the text of the bill itself. One unnamed fellow GOPer told him: “If you are trying to move a bill that solves the border crisis during the election, I will do everything to destroy you,” Lankford said. And they have done so, he said, by signaling they would not support a bill Republicans had said was sorely needed.
Washington state’s Democratic senator Patty Murray is on the floor of the US Senate now, lambasting Republicans who are obstructing the border and war aid spending legislation, and thanking her Republican fellow senator, James Lankford, of Oklahoma, who just spoke passionately.
Murray talked of Ukraine’s defense against Russian president Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine and Israel’s offensive against Hamas, and the need for more US funds for those allies, and said: “Today is a critical vote. Today is a critical day to decide.” She asked if senators would keep their word when they negotiate with each other.
Both she and Lankford are lamenting the fact that legislation in front of the Senate to implement border reforms and boost funds for Ukraine and Israel is on the brink.
“And lets not forget there is the [US-Mexico] border,” she said. “The site of so many Republican photo ops.”
“That’s the moment we are in, by voting it down, Republicans will be telling our allies our word cannot be trusted, telling dictators like Putin that our threats are not serious,” she said.
“And telling the American people they do not want to solve the crisis at the border, they want to campaign on it – you do not let a fire burn so that Donald Trump can campaign on the ashes,” Murray said.
Hours after the House descended into farce yesterday evening when Republicans failed to impeach the homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, and blocked legislation to send military aid to Israel, the Senate is taking a crack at approving a complex bill to tighten immigration policy while assisting both Israel and Ukraine. If that legislation does not pass, and there’s plenty of reason to believe it will not, since Republicans say they no longer like the border security changes, the Senate’s Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, said they’ll vote on a bill that solely contains funds for Kyiv, and for the counterattack against Hamas. Will that attract the 60 votes needed to pass the Senate, and, if it does, will it make through the House, where Ukraine foes are plenty? We’ll find out soon enough.
Here’s what else is going on today:
Joe Biden says he will support the Israel-Ukraine aid bill, even if it does not include immigration policy changes.
The Mayorkas impeachment will die in the Senate, predicted Oklahoma’s Republican senator James Lankford, who negotiated the ill-fated immigration policy bill.
Nikki Haley had a terrible night in Nevada, where she came in second in the primaries to “none of these candidates”. This morning, she blamed the Republican party’s problems on Donald Trump, who appears on course to win its presidential nomination.
The big question looming over the Senate is: will either version of the Israel-Ukraine aid bill, one of which contains immigration policy changes, the other which does not, receive enough votes to pass?
To succeed, either legislation will need to receive 60 votes, meaning at least some Republicans will have to sign on.
Punchbowl News reports that John Thune, the number-two Republican in the Senate, was mum about how his lawmakers were feeling:
Independent senator Bernie Sanders says he will oppose the legislation to provide military aid to Israel, citing the widespread destruction and civilian casualties caused by its invasion of Gaza.
“Israel has the right to defend itself against Hamas’s terrorism, but it does not have the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people. Since this war began over 27,000 Palestinians have been killed and 67,000 wounded – two-thirds of whom are women and children. Over 1.7 million people have been driven from their homes and have no idea as to where they will be in the future. Almost 70% of the housing units in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged,” the Vermont lawmaker said.
“This bill provides $10bn dollars more in US military aid for the Netanyahu government to continue its horrific war against the Palestinian people. That is unconscionable. That is why I will be voting NO.”
Joe Biden will sign legislation to send new military aid to Ukraine and Israel, even if it does not contain policy changes intended to stop migrants from crossing the southern border, the White House announced.
Here’s what spokesman Andrew Bates had to say:
We support this bill which would protect America’s national security interests by stopping Putin’s onslaught in Ukraine before he turns to other countries, helping Israel defend itself against Hamas terrorists and delivering live-saving humanitarian aid to innocent Palestinian civilians. Even if some congressional Republicans’ commitment to border security hinges on politics, President Biden’s does not. We must still have reforms and more resources to secure the border. These priorities all have strong bipartisan support across the country.
Whether the Senate manages to pass any legislation today is a different matter.
The Senate will this afternoon take two votes on approving aid to Israel and Ukraine, one on a bill that will include hardline immigration policies, and one without, the chamber’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer announced.
“I have scheduled a vote on the supplemental that includes strong bipartisan border reforms that Republicans have demanded for months,” Schumer said in a speech on the Senate floor. He went on:
Now, if Republicans blocked this national security package with border legislation that they demanded later today, I will give them the opportunity to move forward with the package without border reforms. This package will otherwise be largely the same. It will have strong funding for Ukraine, funding for Israel, help for innocent civilians in Gaza and funding to the Indo Pacific. The legislation on the floor today is one of the most important security packages the Senate has considered in a very long time. So the onus is on Senate Republicans to finally take yes for an answer.
Last year, Republicans blocked Senate passage of a bill to provide aid to Israel and Ukraine, demanding that the Democrats agree to pass a law to stem the flow of migrants across the US border with Mexico. But after Joe Biden and his allies announced their support this week for hardline policies intended to do that, the GOP said they were no longer interested – reportedly because Donald Trump pressured them to do so.
It’s unclear how Senate Republicans will vote today. In his speech, Schumer warned the party that they would be doing Trump’s bidding and harming national security if they block both pieces of legislation.
“It would be an embarrassment for our country, an absolute nightmare for the Republican party if they reject national security funding twice in one day. Today is the day for Republicans to do the right thing when it comes to our national security,” Schumer said.
“Why are the Republicans doing all this? Why have they backed off on border when they know it’s the right thing to do? Two words, Donald Trump.”
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
