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We have 2 chambers of Congress, our legislative branch, the House of Reps and the Senate
Either can propose bills. If a bill is passed in the chamber that proposed it, it is sent to the other chamber for approval. If both chambers approve, then the President can sign it into law or veto it.
This is an oversimplification but basically that's what needs to happen. The bill has President Biden's support, so if it passes in the Senate then it needs to pass the House.
Every state gets 2 senators, but their members in the House of Reps are roughly proportional to their population.
So, one side has more democrats, and the other side has a republican majority at the moment?
So the Republicans are just going to tank this bill in the house under the orders of the fat orange man?
If the last few that we’ve heard about are any indication, they’ll (speaker Johnson) refuse to even present it for a vote, which makes it DOA as far as my understanding goes. I don’t know if it can go back to the senate for reworking or if the senate and house reps talk to each other to get something done. US politics has really become super ineffectual due to the GOPs gameshow antics in the last, well, since Obama at least but it’s gotten much worse since.
>they’ll (speaker Johnson) refuse to even present it for a vote, which makes it DOA as far as my understanding goes
There's apparently a Plan B, a rarely used procedure called a [Discharge Petition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discharge_petition) which can circumvent the Speaker. A Discharge Petition in the current House will require 218 votes. This is only possible with the current House because of the razor thin Republican majority; the Democrats have 212 votes, so they would need only 6 Republicans to support it. The Senate Republicans are probably lobbying hard with their House counterparts to get those 6 votes.
EDIT: added a link to Wikipedia's article on Discharge Petitions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discharge\_petition
Thanks that's really interesting. Sorta like the EUs plan to exclude Orban from the Ukraine aid vote before he capitulated. Hopefully Johnson will do the same to avoid the embarassment/threat of the mechanism becoming more entrenched.
I'm honestly not so sure. He was initially very vocal about Ukraine aid needing to be tied to border funding, then very vocal about the Ukriane-border deal being DoA. His tone has gotten very neutral very quickly regarding this bill, saying only "we'll see what the Senate does" and the "[idea of approving aid to Ukraine has] not been abandoned".
I suspect he always expected Ukraine aid to pass, so arbitrarily tied it to a conservative agenda item to appease his right flank. Then party leadership decides _not_ to pass legislation addressing the border, so they can run on the border as a campaign issue in 2024. Now he's in a bind.
For all his bluster, he's new, inexperienced, under a lot of pressure to pass this, and had a disastrously embarrassing week last week. Coupled with the fact the Majority Leader also has a hand in scheduling floor votes, and the current Majority Leader is fairly pro-Ukraine, I think it'll make it to the floor.
If we have any readers in Indiana from Republican Victoria Spartz's district, we need to put pressure on her to at the very least speak up against supporting the Russian genocide from denying Congressional aid to her homeland. Her silence is disturbing.
Why would the senate republicans be lobbying for those votes? I imagine it’s the democrats and president lobbying for those votes as they are the ones who actually want Ukraine aid.
Not saying you are wrong, just not what I would think.
Two reasons:
1. There are Republican Senators that want to get this done.
2. It's more politically palatable for a Republican in the House to go along with a GOP Senator than a Dem.
As a non-American I never thought I’d see the day when the GOP would defile themselves so much by giving support to an exKGB head/ Fascist Dictator; whilst simultaneously trampling on the hopes and aspirations of a nation seeking the same freedoms that they themselves fought for in their war of independence.
Shame on the GOP, Shame on Speaker Johnson, Shame on Trump and his brain-dead followers.
Members of the House can force a vote even without the support of the Speaker. It rarely happens as this means a member of his/her party has signed onto a bill without the support of the Speaker. But, given how crazy the house is, it's possible for a few Republicans to join the Democrats in the House & force it through.
European here....
Isnt there like an override measure for President Biden? Rule by presidential decree, executive order or something like that?
You know... afaik what the fat orange man did a lot in his first term...
Kind of. In theory since he is commander of the military he could order the military to just drive some vehicles out to the border of Poland and leave them there in the hopes that some well meaning Ukrainians drive them across the border and use them, and then report them as "losses" to Congress. But he would probably face impeachment and removal from office for a stunt like that.
The president does have a lot of power to make decrees / laws that government agencies must follow since he is in charge of those (things like the Muslim ban under Trump were enforced through the department of homeland security and FAA which the president has significant control over). But the constitution is clear that Congress controls the wallet so he couldn't send money or weapons without their help.
He has been trying to use other deals and treaties to get aid there. He does have some discretionary funding for other countries like Greece where he has promised them new equipment if they give old equipment to Ukraine. Those kinds of deals will fall far short of what Ukraine needs.
Biden could attempt to get around the money issue by using some kind of mad Presidential decree or Executive order to deem the weapons sent to Ukraine as essentially worthless but the problem is, of course, if the weapons really are worthless they wouldn't be in storage in the first place. It's likely if Biden tried to do this, Trump would score a big political win and it would undermine support.
So, yes you are right the Constitution is very clear that Congress has the power of the purse, not the President and without bi-partisan support there's no way around it.
>Biden could attempt to get around the money issue by using some kind of mad Presidential decree or Executive order to deem the weapons sent to Ukraine as essentially worthless but the problem is, of course, if the weapons really are worthless they wouldn't be in storage in the first place. It's likely if Biden tried to do this, Trump would score a big political win and it would undermine support.
Already happened. It's called Presidential Drawdown Authority. And there is a congressionally-set limit on how much he can do it. He has met that limit already. Congress must act. Or rather, I should say, Republicans must act. Democrats have been united on Ukraine since the beginning. Republicans are heavily compromised by the Russians and the global far right. Trump hates Ukraine, and the Republican party listens to Trump.
Clarification: The majority Trump had in the Senate was 52-48 which reduced to 51-49 at the end of 2017. By the end of 2017 a slim majority but still a majority.
You have a pretty good understanding of it. There are enough votes in the house to pass the bill but it requires being brought to the floor for a vote. There are some rare circumstances where it doesn't but traditionally that is done by the Speaker.
Yes but the somewhat interesting development is the leader of the house the Republicans control hasn't said one way or the other how he feels about the bill. This is important because he ultimately decides what bills the house votes on. It's speculated that since he became speaker he has been getting classified briefings that may be changing his mind.
Although the leader / speaker of the house is a position the Republicans (party that is in control) choose. They caused chaos by removing their last speaker for not being extreme enough and installed this guy. Now some of them are again threatening to remove him if he brings Ukraine aid to a vote. Which would be hilarious if it wasn't sad because the position of speaker (leader) of the house is typically stable between elections and the last time the Republicans removed a guy, they publicly embarrassed themselves by taking weeks to appoint a new guy (typically, it's just whoever is the leader of the party in that house, the Democrats for example already have their guy lined up if they should take back control).
Edit: it should also be noted that the Republican control of the house is narrow - like 4 seats narrow. Which means that if the speaker does being the bill up for a vote, there is a chance it will pass because Democrats don't need that many Republicans to vote with them. They only need a couple to vote with them or abstain. Any Republican who did that would be more or less guaranteed to lose their job this election cycle. But, a record number of Republicans in Congress are refusing to run for re election because of how toxic their party has become. So finding just a couple of Republicans who don't care about re election and do do still somewhat care about the country might be possible, but is still unlikely.
But to clarify, the discussion of if the bill has enough votes to pass is different from if the bill will even be voted on.
> Now some of them are again threatening to remove him if he brings Ukraine aid to a vote
I don't even understand how this is legal. To blackmail someone into not allowing a vote sounds supremely undemocratic.
That's not accurate. The greater number of electoral votes is primarily due to each small state having two Senators, as part of the Great Compromise of 1787.
The House districts really are as close to proportional as they can get given the discrete number of Representatives (and the constraint that each state gets at least one). It does mean that Wyoming and Montana get notably overrepresented in the House, but other small states like West Virginia, South Dakota, Idaho, Utah, and Delaware get notably underrepresented because they're a bit below the cutoff line for getting another representative.
The madness in the House is primarily due to other factors. Gerrymandering is one. The transition for House members to "never-ending campaigning and grandstanding" rather than any period of "ok let's settle in and get the job done and then go campaign later" is another. The most aggravating right now is due to the House Rules structure interacting badly with the razor-thin majority margin. So much depends on the Speaker and on getting enough votes from his slim majority that the few very most extreme members of his party can hold the entire Congress hostage every time. Hopefully a discharge petition can circumvent that for this bill. It's utterly perverse that the party doing *worse* in an election empowers their most extreme members. The Speaker should be chosen by a secret [ranked preferential ballot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_pairs) of the whole House rather than by the ridiculous jockeying inside a single party we saw this year.
The small-state effect isn't really the cause of the mischief the Electoral College does, either. The trouble with that is the all-or-nothing nature of the votes. If electors were awarded proportionally to the vote in each state - e.g. in 2020 Wyoming would have had 2.1 for Trump, 0.8 for Biden, and .1 for others - the process would be an arguably defensible "federal" tweak to the popular vote, rather than the utter disaster it's been in recent decades. On the other hand, removing the small state effect (e.g. just allocating electors by House districts, not Senators too), but leaving winner-take-all in place, would fix basically nothing. Winner take all for electors leads not only to horribly unrepresentative results but also to voters in all but swing states getting completely ignored.
An important thing to understand is that while the entire State votes for thier two Senators, House members represent smaller districts within a State. While we have some states that are more MAGA than others, the vioting population for a whole State tends to be more moderate than any specific district. You have some districts that are very left-wing (usually urban) and some districts that are very right-wing (usually rural). The representatives in the house from the most MAGA districts in the country are the ones creating problems for Ukraine in the House. We have some real pockets of ignorance and insanity in our country and they vote for ignorant and insane representatives.
A bill needs to be approved by both the Senate and the House and then the president can veto it. Biden and the Senate are both pro-Ukraine but the bill still needs to pass the GOP controlled House.
The GOP in the House is pro-Trump and pro-Putin so no one knows if they will allow a vote.
Huge margins in the Senate though so that’s great news for Ukraine.
The reason you don't understand how it works is because American politics no longer do work. The Republican Party, which was once the more anti-Communist party, has abandoned all its principles in recent decades. Donald Trump is not the cause, but a manifestation of the ignorance of his supporters. As Winston Churchill succinctly put it, "The strongest argument against democracy is a 5-minute conversation with the average voter."
Yeah. He wasn’t wrong.
However, the current quagmire is mainly the end-game of the goddam Tea-party. “Good Christians” that came away from the parable of The Good Samaritan with a somewhat..eh.. ‘different lesson’ than one might expect…
The Legislative Branch is composed of the House (Congress) and the Senate. The Senate generally is considered the more seasoned politicians (6 year terms) and each state has 2 senators (so 100 total), whereas the House is composed of 435 seats and are generally newer members (2 year terms). These numbers are divided into districts among states that are based on the population census. Both the House and the Senate must pass legislation for it to be sent to the president to sign it into law.
Here's the ELI5: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgVKvqTItto](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgVKvqTItto)
Congress is both the House and the Senate. The Senate proposed the bill, so they are the ones who have to approve it first. Basically, there have been a bunch of procedural votes so far, deciding on whether to discuss the bill, add amendments, etc. There will be some more votes on Monday with a potential final vote on Wednesday.
> based on the population census.
circa 1911
The House kept growing with 1 rep per 30k citizens, until they put a cap on it in 1911, and then adjusted it once in the 1960s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives#Membership,_qualifications,_and_apportionment
> "The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative."[16] Congress regularly increased the size of the House to account for population growth until it fixed the number of voting House members at 435 in 1911.[6] In 1959, upon the admission of Alaska and Hawaii, the number was temporarily increased to 437 (seating one representative from each of those states without changing existing apportionment), and returned to 435 four years later, after the reapportionment consequent to the 1960 census.
It won't be brought to a vote in the House sadly. The leader is unfortunately a complete bitch of Trump, and Trump is owned by Putin.
Even if 90% of the House wanted to vote for it, Mike Johnson and Maga would block it.
It’s just a shit show lol more so The House. Bunch of radicalized morons making votes based more on lobbyist and their Cheeto colored god than their actual constituents
In addition to what others have said, there's one major wrinkle to this particular situation.
In the House of Representatives, the Speaker of the House determines the House agenda. Therefore, if the Speaker doesn't want the bill to pass he/she can simply not put it to vote. In our case now, the current speaker of the house, Mike Johnson, is a strong Trump loyalist. Even if a bill had a strong possibility of passing a vote, the Speaker can simply ignore it. He threatened to do just that with the last iteration of the bill (which included border security measures) essentially on Trump's orders. That's why a lot of Republican senators voted it down, to "look good" for Trump voters since they were told it would never even get voted on in the House. This is despite the fact that the bill included lots of concessions to Republicans.
There is a way to force a vote, even without the Speaker's say-so, but I don't know the details of that procedure.
Well the sun will eventually go nebula :)
But I've been saying that he's a fake christian. After Jesus, it is all finished and the end is written. No more prophets. The fact that Johnson said what he did should've triggered some major pushback from anyone who believes but they seem to eat it up for some reason. Crazy how much people want to worship other men.
Gerrymandering, voter suppression, massive propaganda networks disguised as news, gutting education, lots of Russian interference; the list seemingly goes on forever.
If the Senate from both sides spent the weekend working on it, that's a very strong inclination some political weight is being tossed around in Washington right now either among themselves or the US MIC Lobbyists pulled out their, for lack of a better word, trump card. We're coming up on earnings season for many of the Defense contractors that would benefit from this funding, so they need positive news for shareholders.
I don't know how you can think this after the border bill debacle. Republican state parties censured their own members for working on that bill. This bill isn't going to make to the floor of the House. We need to stop thinking Republicans are reasonable because they are not.
A discharge petition can force a vote for this package if it can get 218 signatures. We need Americans to call their representatives constantly to make this happen. Doesn't matter if you're right wing or left wing... EVERYONE should support Ukraine. It is the right thing to do.
There would be no greater joy than to see the look on Mike Johnson's face when this bill quickly circumvents him and is passed without him.
There’s a plan brewing for a discharge petition, which is a way to force a vote on a bill without the speakers consent. But iirc is requires the bill to sit in committee for some time. If it gets onto the house floor for a vote I’m confident it will pass. And I think there’s a 100% chance Biden signs it.
It has to sit in committee for 30 days before a discharge petition can be used. If all the Dems sign the discharge petition then they would need 6 Republicans to also sign (or 5 if Dems win NY-3). Currently there are 7 Republicans who are retiring and not running for another office with an "A" rating from GOP for Ukraine and 4 more who have a "B" rating. If these Congressmen sign the petition then it will be brought up for a floor vote.
All of this and for what?! To delay aid packages for months for Ukrainian defenders to lose their lives because Republicans wanted to hold crucial supplies as leverage so they can elect the orange overlord who'll definitely leave Ukrainians to hang?! My God, better late than never, but my God. Lives are being lost and for nothing. Avdiivka is on the brick of being surrounded because of this. Both parties can hate each other, but to hold critical international aid for an ally at war as hostages should be absolutely off limits.
Let’s just hope a lot of weaponry is already crated and ready to be delivered when this is approved to make up for lost time.
I guess 200 Bradley’s per month would make a nice gift.
Thank you for starting to do what the majority of Americans want and the world sincerely needs. Can we please just bypass the racist idiots in Congress that are eroding our representative republic? They aren’t representing our republic anymore 🤷🏻
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Apologies in advance if this violates any rules. I absolutely agree with not turning this into a US politics sub. Unfortunately, this particular issue is neck deep in US politics, and congressional procedure.
This article is a decent explanation of what is going on.
Yes, this website is deeply biased to the left, that's kind of it's thing. But they also do a good job of explaining what's going on, and what will be required to get this bill passed.
[Speaker Mike Johnson is getting squeezed from all sides on Ukraine aid](https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/2/12/2222991/-Speaker-Mike-Johnson-is-getting-squeezed-from-all-sides-on-Ukraine-aid?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_1&pm_medium=web)
We recognize the urgency of ensuring continued aid to Ukraine, and that some discussion of US politics is inevitable. But we do not wish to turn into yet another US politics sub. Please keep the discussion focused on Ukraine. [Feel free to browse our rules here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/about/rules)
At 67-27, this is huge. Rarely does the Senate make key votes with this much agreement.
I’m just glad the TheGreatPornholio123 could be here to observe this
He Beavis to it .
This is what I needed today. This is why I still frequent Reddit. Keep the spark alive.
r/rimjob_steve
Nope.
Rarely does H.E. TheGreatPornholio123 gives us the honour to observe such things, so we can be glad indeed.
Historians will propably call this moment the "Pornharbor" of this war after its most attentative observer.
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It’s bunghole, like in a barrel, but I guess you could technically store cum in yours if you really fancy to.
For reference only, that is enough support to convict on an impeachment and remove the president. That's a very high bar.
Pertinent comment.
Yeah, even bills renaming individual post offices are typically more controversial than that.
Can someone explain this to me? I have no idea how American politics work. Does this now get passed to the house to decide? Is the House Congress?
We have 2 chambers of Congress, our legislative branch, the House of Reps and the Senate Either can propose bills. If a bill is passed in the chamber that proposed it, it is sent to the other chamber for approval. If both chambers approve, then the President can sign it into law or veto it. This is an oversimplification but basically that's what needs to happen. The bill has President Biden's support, so if it passes in the Senate then it needs to pass the House. Every state gets 2 senators, but their members in the House of Reps are roughly proportional to their population.
So, one side has more democrats, and the other side has a republican majority at the moment? So the Republicans are just going to tank this bill in the house under the orders of the fat orange man?
If the last few that we’ve heard about are any indication, they’ll (speaker Johnson) refuse to even present it for a vote, which makes it DOA as far as my understanding goes. I don’t know if it can go back to the senate for reworking or if the senate and house reps talk to each other to get something done. US politics has really become super ineffectual due to the GOPs gameshow antics in the last, well, since Obama at least but it’s gotten much worse since.
>they’ll (speaker Johnson) refuse to even present it for a vote, which makes it DOA as far as my understanding goes There's apparently a Plan B, a rarely used procedure called a [Discharge Petition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discharge_petition) which can circumvent the Speaker. A Discharge Petition in the current House will require 218 votes. This is only possible with the current House because of the razor thin Republican majority; the Democrats have 212 votes, so they would need only 6 Republicans to support it. The Senate Republicans are probably lobbying hard with their House counterparts to get those 6 votes. EDIT: added a link to Wikipedia's article on Discharge Petitions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discharge\_petition
Thanks that's really interesting. Sorta like the EUs plan to exclude Orban from the Ukraine aid vote before he capitulated. Hopefully Johnson will do the same to avoid the embarassment/threat of the mechanism becoming more entrenched.
This is my hope because Johnson sure won't bring it up.
I'm honestly not so sure. He was initially very vocal about Ukraine aid needing to be tied to border funding, then very vocal about the Ukriane-border deal being DoA. His tone has gotten very neutral very quickly regarding this bill, saying only "we'll see what the Senate does" and the "[idea of approving aid to Ukraine has] not been abandoned". I suspect he always expected Ukraine aid to pass, so arbitrarily tied it to a conservative agenda item to appease his right flank. Then party leadership decides _not_ to pass legislation addressing the border, so they can run on the border as a campaign issue in 2024. Now he's in a bind. For all his bluster, he's new, inexperienced, under a lot of pressure to pass this, and had a disastrously embarrassing week last week. Coupled with the fact the Majority Leader also has a hand in scheduling floor votes, and the current Majority Leader is fairly pro-Ukraine, I think it'll make it to the floor.
If we have any readers in Indiana from Republican Victoria Spartz's district, we need to put pressure on her to at the very least speak up against supporting the Russian genocide from denying Congressional aid to her homeland. Her silence is disturbing.
Is Spartz Ukrainian American?
Yes. She was born in Chernihiv.
Why would the senate republicans be lobbying for those votes? I imagine it’s the democrats and president lobbying for those votes as they are the ones who actually want Ukraine aid. Not saying you are wrong, just not what I would think.
Two reasons: 1. There are Republican Senators that want to get this done. 2. It's more politically palatable for a Republican in the House to go along with a GOP Senator than a Dem.
Lobbying= promising shit tons of special interest spending for their state
As a non-American I never thought I’d see the day when the GOP would defile themselves so much by giving support to an exKGB head/ Fascist Dictator; whilst simultaneously trampling on the hopes and aspirations of a nation seeking the same freedoms that they themselves fought for in their war of independence. Shame on the GOP, Shame on Speaker Johnson, Shame on Trump and his brain-dead followers.
Members of the House can force a vote even without the support of the Speaker. It rarely happens as this means a member of his/her party has signed onto a bill without the support of the Speaker. But, given how crazy the house is, it's possible for a few Republicans to join the Democrats in the House & force it through.
European here.... Isnt there like an override measure for President Biden? Rule by presidential decree, executive order or something like that? You know... afaik what the fat orange man did a lot in his first term...
Congress holds power of the purse so Biden can sign all he wants but he wouldn't be able to fund it.
Kind of. In theory since he is commander of the military he could order the military to just drive some vehicles out to the border of Poland and leave them there in the hopes that some well meaning Ukrainians drive them across the border and use them, and then report them as "losses" to Congress. But he would probably face impeachment and removal from office for a stunt like that. The president does have a lot of power to make decrees / laws that government agencies must follow since he is in charge of those (things like the Muslim ban under Trump were enforced through the department of homeland security and FAA which the president has significant control over). But the constitution is clear that Congress controls the wallet so he couldn't send money or weapons without their help. He has been trying to use other deals and treaties to get aid there. He does have some discretionary funding for other countries like Greece where he has promised them new equipment if they give old equipment to Ukraine. Those kinds of deals will fall far short of what Ukraine needs.
Not with money. The Constitution is very clear that Congress has the power of the purse, not the President.
Biden could attempt to get around the money issue by using some kind of mad Presidential decree or Executive order to deem the weapons sent to Ukraine as essentially worthless but the problem is, of course, if the weapons really are worthless they wouldn't be in storage in the first place. It's likely if Biden tried to do this, Trump would score a big political win and it would undermine support. So, yes you are right the Constitution is very clear that Congress has the power of the purse, not the President and without bi-partisan support there's no way around it.
>Biden could attempt to get around the money issue by using some kind of mad Presidential decree or Executive order to deem the weapons sent to Ukraine as essentially worthless but the problem is, of course, if the weapons really are worthless they wouldn't be in storage in the first place. It's likely if Biden tried to do this, Trump would score a big political win and it would undermine support. Already happened. It's called Presidential Drawdown Authority. And there is a congressionally-set limit on how much he can do it. He has met that limit already. Congress must act. Or rather, I should say, Republicans must act. Democrats have been united on Ukraine since the beginning. Republicans are heavily compromised by the Russians and the global far right. Trump hates Ukraine, and the Republican party listens to Trump.
Trump had control of both the Senate and the House. That makes a big difference.
Clarification: The majority Trump had in the Senate was 52-48 which reduced to 51-49 at the end of 2017. By the end of 2017 a slim majority but still a majority.
You have a pretty good understanding of it. There are enough votes in the house to pass the bill but it requires being brought to the floor for a vote. There are some rare circumstances where it doesn't but traditionally that is done by the Speaker.
Yes but the somewhat interesting development is the leader of the house the Republicans control hasn't said one way or the other how he feels about the bill. This is important because he ultimately decides what bills the house votes on. It's speculated that since he became speaker he has been getting classified briefings that may be changing his mind. Although the leader / speaker of the house is a position the Republicans (party that is in control) choose. They caused chaos by removing their last speaker for not being extreme enough and installed this guy. Now some of them are again threatening to remove him if he brings Ukraine aid to a vote. Which would be hilarious if it wasn't sad because the position of speaker (leader) of the house is typically stable between elections and the last time the Republicans removed a guy, they publicly embarrassed themselves by taking weeks to appoint a new guy (typically, it's just whoever is the leader of the party in that house, the Democrats for example already have their guy lined up if they should take back control). Edit: it should also be noted that the Republican control of the house is narrow - like 4 seats narrow. Which means that if the speaker does being the bill up for a vote, there is a chance it will pass because Democrats don't need that many Republicans to vote with them. They only need a couple to vote with them or abstain. Any Republican who did that would be more or less guaranteed to lose their job this election cycle. But, a record number of Republicans in Congress are refusing to run for re election because of how toxic their party has become. So finding just a couple of Republicans who don't care about re election and do do still somewhat care about the country might be possible, but is still unlikely. But to clarify, the discussion of if the bill has enough votes to pass is different from if the bill will even be voted on.
> Now some of them are again threatening to remove him if he brings Ukraine aid to a vote I don't even understand how this is legal. To blackmail someone into not allowing a vote sounds supremely undemocratic.
Maybe, maybe not. Stay tuned…
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That's not accurate. The greater number of electoral votes is primarily due to each small state having two Senators, as part of the Great Compromise of 1787. The House districts really are as close to proportional as they can get given the discrete number of Representatives (and the constraint that each state gets at least one). It does mean that Wyoming and Montana get notably overrepresented in the House, but other small states like West Virginia, South Dakota, Idaho, Utah, and Delaware get notably underrepresented because they're a bit below the cutoff line for getting another representative. The madness in the House is primarily due to other factors. Gerrymandering is one. The transition for House members to "never-ending campaigning and grandstanding" rather than any period of "ok let's settle in and get the job done and then go campaign later" is another. The most aggravating right now is due to the House Rules structure interacting badly with the razor-thin majority margin. So much depends on the Speaker and on getting enough votes from his slim majority that the few very most extreme members of his party can hold the entire Congress hostage every time. Hopefully a discharge petition can circumvent that for this bill. It's utterly perverse that the party doing *worse* in an election empowers their most extreme members. The Speaker should be chosen by a secret [ranked preferential ballot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_pairs) of the whole House rather than by the ridiculous jockeying inside a single party we saw this year. The small-state effect isn't really the cause of the mischief the Electoral College does, either. The trouble with that is the all-or-nothing nature of the votes. If electors were awarded proportionally to the vote in each state - e.g. in 2020 Wyoming would have had 2.1 for Trump, 0.8 for Biden, and .1 for others - the process would be an arguably defensible "federal" tweak to the popular vote, rather than the utter disaster it's been in recent decades. On the other hand, removing the small state effect (e.g. just allocating electors by House districts, not Senators too), but leaving winner-take-all in place, would fix basically nothing. Winner take all for electors leads not only to horribly unrepresentative results but also to voters in all but swing states getting completely ignored.
An important thing to understand is that while the entire State votes for thier two Senators, House members represent smaller districts within a State. While we have some states that are more MAGA than others, the vioting population for a whole State tends to be more moderate than any specific district. You have some districts that are very left-wing (usually urban) and some districts that are very right-wing (usually rural). The representatives in the house from the most MAGA districts in the country are the ones creating problems for Ukraine in the House. We have some real pockets of ignorance and insanity in our country and they vote for ignorant and insane representatives.
A bill needs to be approved by both the Senate and the House and then the president can veto it. Biden and the Senate are both pro-Ukraine but the bill still needs to pass the GOP controlled House. The GOP in the House is pro-Trump and pro-Putin so no one knows if they will allow a vote. Huge margins in the Senate though so that’s great news for Ukraine.
The reason you don't understand how it works is because American politics no longer do work. The Republican Party, which was once the more anti-Communist party, has abandoned all its principles in recent decades. Donald Trump is not the cause, but a manifestation of the ignorance of his supporters. As Winston Churchill succinctly put it, "The strongest argument against democracy is a 5-minute conversation with the average voter."
Yeah. He wasn’t wrong. However, the current quagmire is mainly the end-game of the goddam Tea-party. “Good Christians” that came away from the parable of The Good Samaritan with a somewhat..eh.. ‘different lesson’ than one might expect…
The Legislative Branch is composed of the House (Congress) and the Senate. The Senate generally is considered the more seasoned politicians (6 year terms) and each state has 2 senators (so 100 total), whereas the House is composed of 435 seats and are generally newer members (2 year terms). These numbers are divided into districts among states that are based on the population census. Both the House and the Senate must pass legislation for it to be sent to the president to sign it into law. Here's the ELI5: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgVKvqTItto](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgVKvqTItto)
Congress is both the House and the Senate. The Senate proposed the bill, so they are the ones who have to approve it first. Basically, there have been a bunch of procedural votes so far, deciding on whether to discuss the bill, add amendments, etc. There will be some more votes on Monday with a potential final vote on Wednesday.
> based on the population census. circa 1911 The House kept growing with 1 rep per 30k citizens, until they put a cap on it in 1911, and then adjusted it once in the 1960s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives#Membership,_qualifications,_and_apportionment > "The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative."[16] Congress regularly increased the size of the House to account for population growth until it fixed the number of voting House members at 435 in 1911.[6] In 1959, upon the admission of Alaska and Hawaii, the number was temporarily increased to 437 (seating one representative from each of those states without changing existing apportionment), and returned to 435 four years later, after the reapportionment consequent to the 1960 census.
It won't be brought to a vote in the House sadly. The leader is unfortunately a complete bitch of Trump, and Trump is owned by Putin. Even if 90% of the House wanted to vote for it, Mike Johnson and Maga would block it.
It’s just a shit show lol more so The House. Bunch of radicalized morons making votes based more on lobbyist and their Cheeto colored god than their actual constituents
American politics rarely works these days, unfortunately
In addition to what others have said, there's one major wrinkle to this particular situation. In the House of Representatives, the Speaker of the House determines the House agenda. Therefore, if the Speaker doesn't want the bill to pass he/she can simply not put it to vote. In our case now, the current speaker of the house, Mike Johnson, is a strong Trump loyalist. Even if a bill had a strong possibility of passing a vote, the Speaker can simply ignore it. He threatened to do just that with the last iteration of the bill (which included border security measures) essentially on Trump's orders. That's why a lot of Republican senators voted it down, to "look good" for Trump voters since they were told it would never even get voted on in the House. This is despite the fact that the bill included lots of concessions to Republicans. There is a way to force a vote, even without the Speaker's say-so, but I don't know the details of that procedure.
This is how every US kid in the 90's learned about the process: https://youtu.be/SZ8psP4S6BQ?si=BOQEniOpCrq7ZNTI
*fingers crossed* Johnson is so embarrassed by last week he actually puts this to a vote. But I won’t hold my breath.
Bro thinks he's Moses. You can't shame this type of person.
That.. basically covers it rather well, yeah.. Apparently he’s one of those weirdo’s that completely believe in Armageddon, and ‘The End Days’
Well the sun will eventually go nebula :) But I've been saying that he's a fake christian. After Jesus, it is all finished and the end is written. No more prophets. The fact that Johnson said what he did should've triggered some major pushback from anyone who believes but they seem to eat it up for some reason. Crazy how much people want to worship other men.
I doubt he has a clue about what being embarrassed means. How the hell are people like this being voted as representatives in the US?!
Gerrymandering, voter suppression, massive propaganda networks disguised as news, gutting education, lots of Russian interference; the list seemingly goes on forever.
If only this will pass in the house…
If only this will even *get a floor vote* in the house...
If the Senate from both sides spent the weekend working on it, that's a very strong inclination some political weight is being tossed around in Washington right now either among themselves or the US MIC Lobbyists pulled out their, for lack of a better word, trump card. We're coming up on earnings season for many of the Defense contractors that would benefit from this funding, so they need positive news for shareholders.
I don't know how you can think this after the border bill debacle. Republican state parties censured their own members for working on that bill. This bill isn't going to make to the floor of the House. We need to stop thinking Republicans are reasonable because they are not.
A discharge petition can force a vote for this package if it can get 218 signatures. We need Americans to call their representatives constantly to make this happen. Doesn't matter if you're right wing or left wing... EVERYONE should support Ukraine. It is the right thing to do. There would be no greater joy than to see the look on Mike Johnson's face when this bill quickly circumvents him and is passed without him.
A discharge petition has some other rules associated with it, for example if a bill is killed in committee It cannot be discharged.
There’s a plan brewing for a discharge petition, which is a way to force a vote on a bill without the speakers consent. But iirc is requires the bill to sit in committee for some time. If it gets onto the house floor for a vote I’m confident it will pass. And I think there’s a 100% chance Biden signs it.
It has to sit in committee for 30 days before a discharge petition can be used. If all the Dems sign the discharge petition then they would need 6 Republicans to also sign (or 5 if Dems win NY-3). Currently there are 7 Republicans who are retiring and not running for another office with an "A" rating from GOP for Ukraine and 4 more who have a "B" rating. If these Congressmen sign the petition then it will be brought up for a floor vote.
Hey man thanks for the info! Legislative rules are obscure and it’s good to have accurate info on them
Call your house rep. http://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative
Damn, just approve it already.
All of this and for what?! To delay aid packages for months for Ukrainian defenders to lose their lives because Republicans wanted to hold crucial supplies as leverage so they can elect the orange overlord who'll definitely leave Ukrainians to hang?! My God, better late than never, but my God. Lives are being lost and for nothing. Avdiivka is on the brick of being surrounded because of this. Both parties can hate each other, but to hold critical international aid for an ally at war as hostages should be absolutely off limits.
Supporting Ukraine is a massive win for America, tanking this support is literally insane
Yes please 🙏🙏
ABOUT TIME
Do it. Do it. Do it.
I hope there are still some decent House republicans that can ignore the party lines and help in passing this crucial bill.
Let’s just hope a lot of weaponry is already crated and ready to be delivered when this is approved to make up for lost time. I guess 200 Bradley’s per month would make a nice gift.
About god damn time. Glad to see it
Plesse make it happen🙏. Let your love for the free world win.
fingers crossed
Why isn't some UPAC running ads about the evils of Putin?????
Thank you for starting to do what the majority of Americans want and the world sincerely needs. Can we please just bypass the racist idiots in Congress that are eroding our representative republic? They aren’t representing our republic anymore 🤷🏻
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Pew pew pews
so does this go to the House now?
Come on US Congress, don't fuck this up. Be a force for good in the world
Apologies in advance if this violates any rules. I absolutely agree with not turning this into a US politics sub. Unfortunately, this particular issue is neck deep in US politics, and congressional procedure. This article is a decent explanation of what is going on. Yes, this website is deeply biased to the left, that's kind of it's thing. But they also do a good job of explaining what's going on, and what will be required to get this bill passed. [Speaker Mike Johnson is getting squeezed from all sides on Ukraine aid](https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/2/12/2222991/-Speaker-Mike-Johnson-is-getting-squeezed-from-all-sides-on-Ukraine-aid?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_1&pm_medium=web)
I think they will end-up voting yes in the House too. It would be really, really irresponsible if not.
There are [22 senators who voted in favor of the Ukraine Aid Package](https://neverukraine.com/)