The House speaker is open to a stand-alone vote on Ukraine aid. Marjorie Taylor Greene isnāt going to like that one bit.
Poor Mike Johnson is in quite a bind. The House speaker simplyĀ doesnāt have a governing majority: It is borderline impossible to pass anything with only Republican votes, because the hard-right MAGA bloc wants to thwart governing at all costs. So he needs Democrats to pass anything that wouldnāt be uniformly awful for the country. Yet if he does rely on Democrats, that MAGA faction is prepared to depose him.
Thatās why Johnsonās new indication that heāsĀ considering holding a voteĀ on a Ukraine aid packageāone that would be separate from an Israel aid billāis so intriguing and suggestive.
āI think it is a stand-alone, and I suspect it will need to be on suspension,ā JohnsonĀ told Politico, meaning that a bill funding Ukraine aid would have to move viaĀ a fast-track procedureĀ that prevents insurgents from bottling up bills in committees.
One wonders, with such a slim majority, where the speaker and a few others would swing the majority, if theyāve realised they could negotiate bi-partisan agreements which would push conservative policies at the cost of some democratic ones. It would crush the magas, while still pushing conservative agendas and get som form of government working again.
The trouble is, there doesnāt appear to be even a few Republicans left who want that.