Three cheers for bipartisanship and the leadership of Speaker Mike Johnson: When push came to shove, they carried the day as the House voted 316-94 Friday to advance urgent foreign-aid bills to the floor for debate and final votes on Saturday.
Truly urgent: Ukraine’s defenders are running on fumes against Vladmir Putin’s invasion; Israel is fighting for its life against Iran and its pawns across the Middle East; Taiwan is staring down the threat of a Chinese Communist invasion.
Maybe both sides in the House have learned some lessons about the need for functionality in a closely-divided chamber where each party has members posturing for extremist causes.
Republicans voted 151-55 for the “rule” to move ahead; Democrats, 165-39: That’s about as bipartisan as it gets.
Notably, the speaker had firm words for the GOP holdouts: “It’s not the legislation that we would write if Republicans were in charge of both the House, the Senate, and the White House,” but “this is the best possible product that we can get under these circumstances to take care of these really important obligations.”
He also noted that if he hadn’t acted, a bipartisan “discharge petition” would soon have forced a floor vote on the omnibus Senate bill that addresses these needs, but with less Republican input — e.g., the House bills include “some really important sanctions on Russia and China and Iran.”
That is: Despite the obstructionism in the name of GOP principle, he’s managed to make the legislation better reflect Republican ideals, while still getting the must-do job done.
Just as he did a few weeks back, pushing through an imperfect bipartisan funding bill and so preventing a government shutdown that the GOP would’ve been blamed for.
In a related development, it’s clear that enough Democrats will refuse to play along with GOP malcontents should they try to unseat the speaker over this.
Drama queens like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene will fume that this “proves” Johnson is a sellout; in fact, it shows that sensible Dems have realized that no good for anyone comes from indulging the bomb-throwers’ games.
Let’s pray this presages a wider awakening among Democrats, even a new willingness to slap down their own extremes.
And let’s all feel gratitude for Johnson’s beyond-deft handling of the impossible job he’s been stuck with.
