House takes key test vote for Johnson’s $95B foreign aid plan after Dems help it advance

The House of Representatives is voting on whether to proceed with Speaker Mike Johnson’s $95 billion foreign aid proposal on Friday after it cleared its first key procedural hurdle with Democratic help.

The Friday morning vote is a test vote of sorts for the four foreign aid bills, known as a "rule vote." If successful it will allow lawmakers to debate each of the individual four bills and vote on their final passage on Saturday.

Three of the four bills fund Ukraine, Israel, and the Indo-Pacific. A fourth bill includes national security priorities like the House’s recently passed crackdown on TikTok’s ownership as well as the REPO Act, which would liquidate seized Russian assets and give that funding to Ukraine.

Democrats had to help bail the GOP-led proposals on Thursday night in the face of conservative opposition. The Rules Committee, the final barrier before legislation traditionally gets a House-wide vote, spent all day considering the bills before advancing their "rules" package in a 9-3 vote.

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It’s highly unusual for Democrats, or any opposition party, to cross the aisle on a Rules Committee vote as well as a House-wide rule vote. But it underscores the urgency that lawmakers on both sides feel about sending aid to foreign allies.

The three conservatives on the panel — Reps. Chip Roy, R-Texas, Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ralph Norman, R-S.C. — all voted against the measure; an equally unusual move that’s become common in the 118th Congress, where members of the House Freedom Caucus and their allies have wielded outsized influence in Republicans’ thin majority by blocking procedural hurdles such as this. Democrats’ support will be critical for the