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IN THIS EDITION

Johnson gets Democratic help on foreign aid package

Senate in limbo over FISA, foreign aid ahead of planned recess

Punch Power Matrix

Inside the turf war over data privacy as foreign aid vote looms

Joyce on Johnson, 5G and Ukraine

THE TOP

Johnson gets Democratic help on foreign aid package

Happy Friday morning.

After several days of internal House GOP intrigue and infighting, here’s the Republican leadership’s plan for taking up and passing the $95 billion foreign aid package, a border security bill and several related measures. Of course, since this is the wildly dysfunctional 118th Congress, we’ll note this schedule could change. So keep your head on a swivel!

The House is scheduled to vote today on the rule for the Israel–Ukraine–Taiwan aid bills and a “sidecar” package that includes a TikTok ban. That’s in large part thanks to the four Democrats who voted yes during the Rules Committee vote Thursday night. Democratic votes were needed because three hardline Republicans — Reps. Chip Roy (Texas), Ralph Norman (S.C.) and Thomas Massie (Ky.) — voted no. The fact that Republicans couldn’t carry this on their own was well known going into the proceedings today, but it’s still stunning to see the minority support a GOP-drafted rule in the Rules Committee.

A vote on final passage of the foreign aid package, the sidecar bill and a handful of amendments is expected Saturday afternoon and into the evening. There was some hope that Speaker Mike Johnson would expedite consideration of the legislation and hold both votes today. That didn’t happen; it will only be the rule vote this morning.

The House will also begin consideration under suspension of the House GOP’s partisan border security bill, H.R. 3602, the End the Border Catastrophe Act, on Friday. This bill is a slightly modified version of H.R. 2, which was approved on a party-line vote last May. Democratic leaders are opposing the proposal, so there’s no way it will get the required two-thirds majority needed for passage.

Johnson and the MTV. We scooped Thursday morning that there was some discussion in the House leadership about attaching language to the rule for the foreign aid bill that would boost the threshold for dumping the speaker. Currently, any single member can offer such a motion, making things largely impossible for top Republicans due to the thin margin of control.

This move made a lot of sense from a strategic perspective. House Democrats were ready to vote for the rule change since they largely support the foreign aid package. And the “vast majority” of House Republicans support raising the threshold for booting a speaker, as House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told us.

Johnson discussed the issue with members and leadership aides Wednesday, and in the end, backed away from what would’ve been an enormously controversial step, especially with conservatives. Johnson at one point huddled on the floor with the House Freedom Caucus in what appeared to be an extraordinarily heated conversation.

Yet several senior House Republicans were furious with Johnson’s decision to stand down, accusing him of abandoning any opportunity to instill some order to the body. Here’s what one senior Republican aide told us:

Rank-and-file House Democrats were likewise perplexed by Johnson. Democrats told us they would have supported the change to quiet the “chaos corner” in the House Republican Conference.

But the Democratic leadership was wary of backing the move to change the motion to vacate before Johnson passed the Ukraine bill, according to several members and senior aides. Democrats called the dynamic a “late entrance” into negotiations that were already in a “good place,” adding that it “unsettled” the talks around passing the foreign aid supplemental.

Democrats also told us there will be “more than enough” of their lawmakers to table any motion to oust Johnson after he passes the Ukraine-Taiwan-Israel supplemental.

And here’s some news: The House Freedom Caucus met on Thursday evening and raised concerns about ousting Johnson in an election year.

Some members were unhappy about the possibility of Johnson being replaced by Scalise, who could end up staying in that post for the foreseeable future.

The majority of HFC members are currently against a motion to vacate, despite being extremely angry at Johnson, sources told us.

— Jake Sherman, John Bresnahan, Heather Caygle and Mica Soellner

New! Join Punchbowl News on Wednesday, May 1 at 9 a.m. ET for a conversation with Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.). Punchbowl News founder and CEO Anna Palmer and senior congressional reporter Andrew Desiderio will sit down with DeLauro to discuss the news of the day, national security modernization and warfighter readiness in the United States. Afterward, Henry Brooks, president of Power & Controls at Collins Aerospace, will join Anna for a fireside chat. RSVP now!

THE SENATE

Senate in limbo over FISA, foreign aid ahead of planned recess

Hello Senate Friday, is that you?

Senate leaders are struggling to pass a reauthorization of a warrantless surveillance program before tonight’s deadline as they look to avoid potentially difficult votes on amendments.

Several senators in both parties are demanding votes on amendments to the bill, which reauthorizes Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. But a problem is emerging for Senate leaders on both sides and the White House — some of those amendments could actually be adopted.

Of course, if the Senate changes the House-passed bill in any way, it must go back across the Capitol for another vote. What’s more, the White House strongly opposes the changes being discussed, including the establishment of new warrant requirements for data on U.S. persons swept up in surveillance operations targeting foreign nationals outside the country.

So Senate leaders are wary of allowing votes on these amendments, especially at a lower threshold for passage, even if it means they can’t reach a unanimous consent agreement to pass the bill before tonight’s deadline. The alternative is to run out the clock and ensure that no amendments can get floor votes. But this would result in a temporary lapse in the program.

In the meantime, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said there will likely be additional procedural votes today.

White House worries: Top Biden administration officials have spent all week lobbying senators against the proposed amendments to the bill, even passing around memos that accuse senators from their own party of threatening U.S. national security by gutting the 702 program.

But their efforts have done little for those who believe the two-year FISA reauthorization bill represents a dramatic and unconstitutional expansion of the government’s spying powers.

“I’d much rather have a long-term bill that shows both security and liberty can co-exist,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a longtime privacy hawk and critic of the warrantless surveillance program.

Strange bedfellows: A fascinating right-left alliance has formed on each side of this debate.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Vice Chair Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) have partnered with Senate leadership and the Biden administration to get this legislation across the finish line as quickly as possible without any changes.

“Some of [the amendments] actually undermine the program, and others are unnecessary,” Rubio said.

On the other side is a sizable group of privacy hawks and civil libertarians stretching across the ideological spectrum — everyone from Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to Wyden, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin and Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.).

On foreign aid: There’s another advantage, albeit a hidden one, for Senate leaders here if they drag out the FISA process through the weekend.

On top of eliminating the risk that any amendments are adopted, such a tactic would also allow Schumer to immediately tee up the House’s foreign aid package, which is scheduled to get a vote in the House on Saturday.

The usual caveats apply here. The Ukraine-Israel-Taiwan aid package is far from a slam dunk right now in the House. But keeping the Senate in session over the weekend gives Schumer additional flexibility in the event that the upper chamber needs to act.

Next week was supposed to be a scheduled recess. It’s also Passover on Monday, and several senators are scheduled to travel out of the country on CODELs.

Yet senators are operating under the assumption that they’ll be in Washington if the House sends them a foreign aid package. Of course, it could take multiple days for the Senate to actually pass it given the expected objections from the GOP side.

So it’s entirely possible that the entire recess could end up getting canceled.

— Andrew Desiderio

WHO’S UP, WHO’S DOWN

Punch Power Matrix

— Max Cohen

Inside the turf war over data privacy as foreign aid vote looms

A long-running turf battle between two of the House’s most powerful committees will enter a new phase this weekend as Congress sprints to clear the four-bill foreign aid package.

At issue is the future of federal data privacy. The House Financial Services and Energy and Commerce committees have conflicting visions here tied in part to the federal agencies they oversee.

One small piece of the “sidecar” bill set to reach the House floor on Saturday would ban data brokers from selling U.S. customer data to “foreign adversaries.” That bill, authored by top Commerce Democrat Rep. Frank Pallone (N.J.) and Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), passed the House 414-0 in March.

But the bill’s inclusion in the sidecar package released this week came as a surprise to top House Financial Services Committee staff and members. The chief concern of banking staff is the bill’s treatment of the Federal Trade Commission and financial data.

Lawmakers including Chair Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) and Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) want the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to have chief oversight of data brokers and financial data.

We spotted a visibly furious McHenry during votes Wednesday evening. The financial services chair confirmed to us he was “absolutely” unhappy about the data broker bill’s inclusion in the sidecar bill but declined to elaborate.

The politics here are awkward. Both Waters and McHenry voted in favor of the data broker bill in March. Then, the pair spent this week pushing hard for an amendment to reach the floor that would partly replace the role of the FTC with the CFPB in the data broker bill.

The Financial Services panel communicated its concerns about the data broker bill to Commerce staff before the bill was brought to the House floor under suspension, according to an Energy and Commerce aide familiar with the talks. But then, of course, Waters and McHenry backed the bill on the floor, as did every other member to vote. So Commerce leaders are skeptical about the timing of McHenry’s and Waters’ push now.

Waters and McHenry were dealt a blow late Thursday night when the House Rules Committee didn’t include their amendment among those to be considered before final passage, making it extremely unlikely the language will change before Saturday’s vote. We’ll keep you posted as this develops.

More CFPB news: Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.) led a letter to the CFPB on Thursday asking the agency to provide “greater clarity” on how the government is responding to a court injunction targeting its small business data collection rule. Read the copy we obtained here.

The CFPB was sued in 2023 by a trade association for payday lenders over that rule. Then, in October, a Texas district court ordered the agency to pause its implementation process as the litigation proceeds.

But Hill wrote that lawmakers had “heard” reports that federal regulators “are encouraging financial institutions under their oversight to disregard the injunction” ahead of the rule’s effective date of Oct. 1, 2024. Hill asked the CFPB to “issue clear guidance affirming its commitment to comply” with the injunction.

— Brendan Pedersen, John Bresnahan and Heather Caygle

PUNCHBOWL NEWS EVENTS

Joyce on Johnson, 5G and Ukraine

Rep. John Joyce (R-Pa.) on Thursday joined us for a conversation on the FCC’s spectrum authority, Speaker Mike Johnson’s future and the foreign aid bill.

Here are our top takeaways:

Ukraine funding: Joyce, who previously voted against Ukraine aid, voiced support for Johnson as the speaker faces increased criticism from his far-right flank.

“I feel that Speaker Johnson has stepped into a difficult situation and done an incredibly, incredibly successful job,” Joyce said. “I think that Speaker Johnson will be successful and will continue to lead this conference.”

Joyce demurred when we asked him if he would support the stand-alone Ukraine bill. The Pennsylvania Republican instead praised Johnson for allowing an open amendment process on the package.

Motion to vacate: Joyce said he supported a proposed effort to raise the threshold of members required to trigger a motion to vacate. Johnson has now backed off that idea, for what it’s worth.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) recent introduction of a motion to vacate resolution aimed at Johnson has angered Republicans who are already weary after the ousting of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

“I think having that challenge, that threat always hanging over you makes it difficult to lead,” Joyce said. “I think that increasing that threshold would be something I can clearly get behind.”

Spectrum: Joyce said that Congress needs to “make sure that America takes the lead in 5G.”

Joyce said China is taking advantage of the United States’ current spectrum situation. Through his work on the House GOP China Task Force, Joyce said he realized the FCC’s limited spectrum authority is hurting America’s national security.

“China wants to eat your lunch, but they want your dinner and they want your milk money too,” Joyce added.

Following the conversation with Joyce’s insights, CTIA President and CEO Meredith Attwell Baker joined us for a fireside chat on how Congress could act on spectrum authority.

Baker praised Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and John Thune (R-S.D.) for introducing a bill that would expand access to commercial spectrum.

Baker said the legislation was “a really great starting place because now we have something that is real, that is the gold standard of what this industry needs.”

Baker added that spectrum is important for America’s national security and warned that China is outpacing the United States in auctioning off new spectrum.

— Max Cohen

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