We’re not quite to the ultimate goal yet, but the momentum is there to get the employees of the DHS back to receiving their paychecks.
On Wednesday, the House passed a procedural vote on funding for the Department of Homeland Security and FISA along party lines, after removing a third component of the package:
House Republican leaders on Wednesday cleared a major hurdle when they corralled members into adopting a rule to tee up consideration of two major pieces of legislation: reauthorization of the nation’s foreign spy powers and a budget blueprint to fund immigration enforcement.
The House voted 216-210 along party lines to adopt the rule. To do so, however, Republicans had to agree to drop a third piece of legislation initially also part of the same rule: the farm bill, which sets agriculture policy for the next five years.
Adoption of the rule, even with the concession, is a major victory for GOP leaders who held open the vote for more than two hours as they won over holdouts and convinced rebels, one-by-one, to change their votes from “no” to “yes.”
READ MORE: Democrats Dig in Against ICE As GOP Forces Funding Showdown
There It Is: House Democrat Gives Away the Game During Heated Exchange on DHS Funding Stalemate
Indeed, it took some doing, and as my colleague at sister site Townhall, Matt Vespa, wrote, it didn’t come without some dramatic moments:
And the rules vote didn’t go smoothly at first, though some politicking was involved, with the farm bill to be voted on separately later. The Make America Healthy Again group threatened to reject the bill unless provisions that reportedly protected pesticide manufacturers from lawsuits were removed. There were whispers that some of these rule votes might happen in the dead of night, but that didn’t happen. After two hours, this procedural hurdle was cleared 216-210, paving the way for passage unless the House GOP decides to tweak it, which will infuriate the White House.
Vespa notes that the procedural vote “[is] a good sign of passage, but we’re hardly in the clear” considering the bumpy start to it, with Reps. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL-13) and Harriet Hageman (R-WY-at large) voting no.
Here are the Republicans after Luna who originally voted no before switching to a yes vote, according to The Hill report linked above:
Reps. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.), Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.), Troy Nehls (R-Texas), Tim Burchett (Tenn.) Keith Self (Texas) and Scott Perry (Pa.) also switched their votes from “no” to “yes.”
Some others held off voting, then voted yes:
Various others Republicans who also had been withholding votes also slowly voted yes, including Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), Rep. Russel Fry (R-S.C.) and Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.).
The tricky part here will be on the FISA reauthorization getting through the Senate, but Speaker Mike Johnson was hopeful after the House vote:
Johnson said that he speaks with Thune “all the time,” and the Senate is “watching this very closely and and hopefully they can process what we send them.”
“No one — no one on the Republican side, anyway — wants to play around with letting these critical national security tools go unfunded or expire, so I think they’ll move it expeditiously,” Johnson said.
Since this is an ongoing story with several moving parts, RedState will keep you posted.
Editor’s Note: Democrat politicians and their radical supporters will do everything they can to interfere with and threaten ICE agents enforcing our immigration laws.
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