Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick prepares to force Ukraine aid vote as ‘fail safe’ against isolationist Republicans
A Republican lawmaker is preparing to trigger a process that would force a vote in the lower chamber on replenishing aid to war-torn Ukraine.
Specifically, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) is eyeing a rarely used parliamentary procedure known as a discharge petition, which he framed as a means of assisting House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.)
“Just to be clear, this isn’t an end run around the speaker at all, quite to the contrary. We’re going to be working with [the speaker’s office] to try to get a bill to the floor that they want to bring to the floor,” Fitzpatrick stressed to The Post.
Johnson has expressed support for Ukraine but declined to take up a vote on aid to the beleaguered eastern European nation amid fierce pressure from his right flank to prioritize border security legislation.
The speaker has demanded that any new supplemental funds for Ukraine be paired with a crackdown on illegal immigration but opposed a bipartisan Senate deal meant to accomplish that — calling its provisions woefully inadequate.
“Hopefully House leadership will find a bill they can put on the floor that can navigate the Senate,” Fitzpatrick said. “If they can’t get there, or if it’s too politically perilous for the speaker to do it, this is an option.”
Fitzpatrick underscored that he has been in communication with Johnson and that this is intended to “complement his efforts,” not “undercut them.”
House Democrats have toyed with the idea of a discharge petition but would need GOP support to obtain the necessary 218 signatures for it to take effect.
Fitzpatrick said he anticipated the legislative vehicle for a petition could be put out by next Friday to allow time to accrue the remaining endorsements.
Complicating the situation is the fact that dozens of progressives in the House of Representatives have become increasingly hostile to additional aid to Israel — another key part of any supplemental spending package — without conditions.
Earlier this month, Fitzpatrick teamed up with three other Republicans and four Democrats to pitch a $66 billion plan encompassing aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan as well as border reform.
He anticipates that the discharge petition could be deployed to advance that proposal.
Fitzpatrick stressed that “the border provisions in our bill are very tough.”
“It reinstates remain in Mexico. And it goes even further than that,” he said as an example. “It also includes title 42 without the public health requirements — that’s expulsion authority at the border.”
A discharge petition is rarely deployed successfully. In 2015, House Republicans backed a discharge petition alongside Democrats to revive the Export-Import Bank.
Prior to that, the technique hadn’t been used successfully since 2002.
Fitzpatrick, who co-chairs the bipartisan Problem Solvers’ Caucus and is generally seen as one of the most bipartisan members in the lower chamber, recently visited Ukraine ahead of the two-year anniversary of Russia’s bloody invasion.
He returned from that trek and publicly painted a dire picture of the state of the conflict raging half a world away.
“In my travel to Ukraine, I met with my friend, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. In our discussion, I promised I would do whatever necessary to pass our bipartisan bill providing urgently needed military aid to Ukraine and protecting democracy in the region,” he said at the time.
Democrats, including members of the Biden administration, have needled Johnson, predicting that if the House takes up aid to Ukraine in any form, it will pass.
Many Republican luminaries on foreign policy have grown increasingly uneasy about the delay in replenishing military support for Kyiv.
Earlier this month, Ukraine suffered a significant loss on the battlefield when it was forced to withdraw from the eastern city of Avdiivka, in one of Russia’s greatest victories in months.
White House officials blamed that defeat in part on the lack of munitions.
Other world leaders have conveyed a similar sentiment, with leadership in at least 23 parliaments around the world imploring Johnson to take up a vote on new aid.
President Biden had asked Congress to re-up aid last August, but House Republicans declined to do so demanding border security.
A $118 billion bipartisan supplemental with both border security and aid to Ukraine went belly up in the Senate earlier this month. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) then took up a $95 billion supplemental without the border provisions.
That package, featuring roughly $60 billion for Ukraine, cleared the upper chamber, but Johnson has declined to take it up.
Johnson had a one-on-one meeting with Biden on Tuesday after a discussion that included the other top four congressional leaders.
