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The House is out of session, and holding a Republican strategy, team building retreat at the Green Briar Hotel in West Virginia. Yesterday Speaker Johnson announced at the retreat that the house would take up, Ukrainian aid vote in the next two weeks.

Johnson says he expects the house take up Ukraine aid with Democratic votes

So what happened?

What is the "suspension calendar"? and what changed to allow the Dems? to leverage it?

Senate has already passed the 93 billion package, do they start there?

Rick Smith
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JMS
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    Sounds like they made a deal – Pete W Mar 15 '24 at 14:09
  • or maybe unrelated, and they want to unbundle the Israel aid portion, to make room for further haggling ... https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/johnson-considering-stand-alone-israel-aid-bill-following-comments-from-schumer-on-foreign-ally-s-elections/ar-BB1jUnZ5 ... or both. – Pete W Mar 15 '24 at 14:14
  • in same link, Schumer made what is for him unprecedented criticism of Israel, essentially calling for Netanyahu's defenestration – Pete W Mar 15 '24 at 14:20
  • @PeteW, Take back my previous comment. Evidently the suspension calendar is something Johnson has used in the past to pass non - controversial bills. And the article says Johnson expects to pass the bill. So clearly he is supporting it. I noticed he seemed to nod in approval at the State of the Union speech when Biden lead off with how important Ukrainian aid was. – JMS Mar 15 '24 at 14:20
  • We'll see soon. – Pete W Mar 15 '24 at 14:20
  • @PeteW, yeah you're right. There was definitely a deal done. First order of business is to keep the U.S. government funded, and deadline March 28th, and directly after that Foreign aid. – JMS Mar 15 '24 at 14:53
  • yeah, looking at some more statements, it sure looks like they have a deal on both Ukraine and Israel – Pete W Mar 15 '24 at 18:54
  • @PeteW, and amazingly Speaker Johnson, is not in fear of being removed from the speakership, is the one putting the vote on the docket through the Suspension Calendar which he alone controls and seems to be personally supporting the bill. It's all fascinating. – JMS Mar 16 '24 at 16:04

1 Answers1

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Re: Suspension motion

Members frequently use the “motion to suspend the rules” to fast-track legislation that has broad support and little need for prolonged debate. When the House considers a bill under suspension of the rules, the House suspends its normal rules and procedures controlling legislative debate and votes, allowing the bill to pass quickly. The suspension process’ parameters mean that broadly bipartisan legislation is typically best suited for it. from: https://www.progressivecaucuscenter.org/suspensions-117th-congress

Re: Suspension calendar

There is a special calendar when a suspension motion may be made.

A motion to suspend the rules may only be made by the Speaker of the House or their designee, though it is customary for committee chairs to write the Speaker requesting a suspension. Once a member moves to "suspend the rules" and take some action, debate is limited to 40 minutes, no amendments can be offered to the motion or the underlying matter, and a 2/3 majority of Members present and voting is required to agree to the motion.

These votes, under the rules, may only take place on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays. Under special circumstances, suspension votes may take place on Thursdays or Fridays, or other days... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspension_of_the_rules_in_the_United_States_Congress

I think the Speaker is really just saying, that he plans on bringing the new bill to the floor via a suspension motion.

Potential significance in the current situation:

  • If the matter under consideration was controversial, like Ukraine aid, it would be a sign that a deal was made between the party leaders, and they're using procedure to limit debate for the purpose of locking out any hold-outs still opposed to the deal.

  • If the matter under consideration was not particularly controversial (eg Israel aid, without the House IRS policy changes bundled to it), it wouldn't mean much.

Pete W
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    It's worth nothing that after (standalone) aid to Israel failed to reach the 2/3 votes, Johnson said he would bring it to the floor in regular procedure "next week", but AFAICT that hasn't happened in over a month. So the hardliners in the rules committee stuck to their guns apparently. Johnson may be getting tired of them. – the gods from engineering Mar 15 '24 at 16:18
  • OTOH he may also be counting on the fact that there's more opposition in the GOP to Ukraine aid, so maybe he's done the math that Ukraine aid will also fail to reach 2/3, IDK. – the gods from engineering Mar 15 '24 at 16:23
  • Thirdly, on Ukraine aid, he was threatened with his decision being bypassed entirely via a discharge petition. https://kyivindependent.com/us-congress-may-start-gathering-votes-to-bypass-speaker-johnson-on-ukraine-aid/ I'm not sure how realistic the chances for that were though. And we can only speculate if Johnson's decision was somehow influenced by that. – the gods from engineering Mar 15 '24 at 16:24
  • @Dolphin613Motorboat yeah there's a lot going on. Another factor is that the bulk of the primaries are done, so the pressure is off many Representatives among those who were worried about that. – Pete W Mar 15 '24 at 18:23
  • Schumer's statement yesterday is also a factor that reflects Israel policy into the US election maneuverings, because of the Netanyahu - Trump alliance. Many Republicans in both House and Senate seem to have responded to that. I'm really unclear about the logic of where that goes. – Pete W Mar 15 '24 at 18:25
  • @Dolphin613Motorboat: I'd say the odds of a discharge petition being successful are greater than the odds of Putin ally Mike Johnson actually allowing a meaningful Ukraine aid bill to come to the floor. – supercat Mar 16 '24 at 04:53