House centrists are doing their own version of the the Ukraine, Israel foreign aid bill that also address Biden’s open border and they are trying to do it in a bipartisan way.
The new legislation has four Republican and four Democrat co-sponsors:
News: Bipartisan Ukraine-Israel- Taiwan-border security proposal from House centrists will have 8 co-sponsors, 4 from each party
Republicans: Bacon, Fitzpatrick, Lawler & Chavez-DeRemer.
Democrats: Golden, Case, Perez & Costa
— John Bresnahan (@bresreports) February 15, 2024
Here’s more on this from NBC News:
After Speaker Mike Johnson rejected a Senate-passed national security package, centrist House Republican lawmakers said Thursday they will soon unveil their own bipartisan proposal that calls for new border policies coupled with critical military aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
“This is a really good piece of legislation. It’s pared-down. It’s airtight. There’s really not a whole lot of area that anyone can criticize on this,” said Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., though the group has yet to release the text. “And it’s bipartisan. It’s the only bipartisan solution in the House.”
The bipartisan package will initially have eight co-sponsors, equally split between Democrats and Republicans. In addition to Fitzpatrick, the Republican backers are Reps. Don Bacon of Nebraska, Mike Lawler of New York and Lori Michelle Chavez-DeRemer of Oregon, a lawmaker confirmed.
The Democrats are Reps. Jared Golden of Maine, Ed Case of Hawaii, Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez of Washington and Jim Costa of California, the lawmaker said.
Fitzpatrick is a co-chair of the Problem Solvers Caucus, a bipartisan group of centrist lawmakers, but he said the legislation wasn’t a Problem Solvers product.
Bacon, a swing district lawmaker, said he worked with Fitzpatrick to craft the bill and hopes to release it soon. In addition to scaled-back aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, the package borrows language from the House GOP’s tough border bill, known as H.R. 2, members said.
That includes language relating to the “Remain in Mexico” policy that required some asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico while their claims were adjudicated. President Joe Biden ended the policy, which human rights groups said led migrants to face kidnappings and violence, when he took office, and the Supreme Court upheld the move.
“It’s going to be military aid only — Ukraine, Taiwan, Israel. And the Remain in Mexico policy using a lot of the wording from the H.R. 2. And we have Democrat buy-in,” Bacon said. “And I think this is a good spot to be if you’re Republican. You’re reducing the Senate bill by about 30%. So it’s fiscally more responsible. We know we got to do military aid to Ukraine or they’re going to fall, and it’ll cost us more if that happens. And we can deal with the border. So I just feel good about what we’re doing.”
But reinstating the border policy would require cooperation from Mexico, which it has rejected. Neither Fitzpatrick nor Bacon could explain how to resolve that dilemma.
“That’s something we’ll have to work out,” Bacon said. “I’m not on the foreign — I’m not an ambassador, so I have no idea how they’re going to respond. Our guys want something that makes a difference on the border.”
Fitzpatrick said they’re “still ironing out the language” on the immigration side of the bill and added that it’ll be the Biden administration’s job to find a way to make Mexico comply.
If they are using the Senate bill as the measure for this new bill, then I don’t think it’s going to fly with Republicans. But all they need is a few with this slim majority and they need to convince Johnson to bring it to the floor for consideration. Because I don’t think he’s onboard with any of this yet.