10 months ago
With Senate negotiators expected to unveil their elusive bipartisan border deal any day now — and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer floating a vote on the White House’s $106 billion supplemental as soon as next week — the watercooler chatter on Capitol Hill has turned to one elephant-sized question: How the hell do you get this thing past the Republican House?
Speaker Mike Johnson is under tremendous pressure from former President Donald Trump and other conservatives not to give President Joe Biden a win on border security — an issue that has plagued him in the polls — ahead of the 2024 election. And members including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) are openly threatening to oust the Louisiana Republican if he allows a new tranche of Ukraine aid through the House.
But given the stakes in Ukraine and the political fallout from the migrant crisis, some Democrats are considering a once almost unthinkable idea to land the plane: trading a border deal for protecting Johnson’s gavel.
Several Democrats — including House Armed Services Committee ranking member Adam Smith (D-Wash.), House Homeland Security Committee ranking member Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and border Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas) — said yesterday that if Johnson puts the Senate deal on the floor, some in their party would likely step in to make sure he holds on as speaker.
“Our job is not to save Johnson, but I think it would be a mighty pity, if he did the right thing … for us not to support him,” Thompson said. “Up to this point, he’s been a fairly honest broker.”
First off, let’s be clear: There are a million reasons why this idea will probably never come to pass. For one, Johnson is very unlikely to ever go there. He’d utterly ruin his relationship with Trump — not to mention alienate large swaths of his own conference by relying on Democrats to keep his job.
But the fact that some Democrats are even talking about the idea shows how desperate they are to find a solution. The party knows that time is running out to help Ukraine. And they’re getting pummeled on the border issue politically and need to do something to alleviate the situation.
It might seem like a major change in thinking from just a few months ago, when Democrats refused to lift a finger to help Kevin McCarthy keep his speakership. But more than half-dozen senior Democratic aides and lawmakers told us that there is a huge difference between the two men.
For one, Democrats largely viewed McCarthy as a bad-faith actor who lied to them and was instrumental in resurrecting Trump after Jan. 6. Johnson, they note, hasn’t shown himself to be untrustworthy, even if he’s even more conservative than McCarthy.
“People really underestimate the degree to which people really didn’t like Kevin McCarthy,” said Smith, who has personally implored Johnson to find a way to yes on a border deal. “The argument I've made to Mike is: You're going to make an enormous amount of progress on the border however this comes out — and you’ve still got your political issue because you think there's more that needs to be done.”
Not all Democrats agree. Some told us that Johnson would likely be asked to pay some sort of political ransom in the form of a power-sharing agreement, more committee seats or other rules changes. But, realistically, Johnson wouldn’t need all Democrats— only a few to counter the Republicans who vote to oust him. (Note: For McCarthy, that was eight.)
Democrats aren’t the only ones desperate to find a path through the House for the supplemental agreement. Some Republicans truly want to see Ukraine aid pass, while others are eager to provide relief to constituents in overrun and exhausted border towns. Already, a host of Republicans are hitting TV airwaves to counter the pressure from the right to hold off on border legislation till after the election.
“I am looking for solutions now, not a year from now,” Texas border Rep. Tony Gonzales, a Republican, told us.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) was even more blunt, arguing that delaying progress for political purposes is, essentially, gross.
“My question to those Republicans … is: How many hundreds of thousands of illegals would you allow in the country just because it might help your chances of the election?” he said. “I ran for Congress literally on getting the border secure. So if I have a chance to do that, and I don't do that, I'm a traitor.”
Yet there isn’t much these members can do if Johnson either (1) refuses to take up the Senate deal or (2) brings it up but attaches H.R. 2 provisions that will never pass the Senate, effectively killing it. There isn’t an easy way to make an end-run around the speaker.
Lawmakers in both parties told us yesterday that there’s no hope for a discharge petition to force a vote on a Senate deal. Republicans are too skittish to go against Trump and their own leadership. And Democrats readily admit that dozens of progressives and Hispanic Caucus members won’t support the deal at all because of the policy changes it's likely to include and a process that did not include their input.
“I think it's dead on arrival in the House,” said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), a skeptic of the deal.
Some Republicans say it wouldn’t come to that, however. Crenshaw, for example, was adamant that even if Johnson is staying in touch with Trump and other border-deal opponents — and despite Greene’s threat of a motion to vacate — that the speaker wants to get to yes.
“I know how Johnson actually thinks, and he’s of the same opinion I am here,” Crenshaw told us.
Democrats? They’re not so sure.
“He's got to decide if he’s going to do what’s right — or he’s going to do what’s politically expedient to just keep himself there for another — er, I don't know how long,” Vicente Gonzalez said.
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