Republicans’ go-it-alone strategy keeps hitting walls, jeopardizing must-pass bills

The House Republicans’ go-it-alone approach is snarling efforts to move a series of must-pass bills through the lower chamber this week.

On three major pieces of legislation — to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), extend the government’s spying powers and set farm policy for the next half decade — GOP leaders have opted to cut Democrats from the negotiations, betting that they can rally their troops to ram the proposals through the lower chamber on largely partisan votes.

Broadly speaking, the strategy has clear advantages, eliminating the need to get buy-in from Democrats while empowering the majority-party Republicans to craft more conservative legislation. But in a chamber with wafer-thin margins, the tactic is running into wall after wall as Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and his leadership team struggle to unite their GOP conference behind bills that can satisfy the competing ideologies within the group.

Those dynamics forced GOP leaders to delay the rules process governing the three bills, and they raise real questions about whether any of the proposals can pass if and when they reach the floor later this week.

They also set the stage for a showdown with the Senate, where Democratic votes are needed to meet the filibuster’s 60-vote threshold.

The debate has bucked a long tradition surrounding government spending, the farm bill and reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), all of which have historically passed with bipartisan support — a break that frustrated Democrats are quick to highlight.

“You have a small majority and rather than working with us, you ice us out,” Rep. Jim McGovern (Mass.), the senior Democrat on the House Rules Committee, said Tuesday during a meeting on the various proposals.

“We find ourselves in these situations where we come to the Rules Committee, we have long meetings, debates on amendments, and then we have to adjourn because the people on your side are fighting with each other.”

The push to extend FISA authority is the most pressing issue on the menu. Johnson had initially sought to move a “clean” extension of the government’s warrantless spying powers, but the bill ran into opposition from conservative Republicans insisting on greater privacy protections for U.S. citizens.

Faced with an April 20 deadline, GOP leaders punted the issue with a 10-day stopgap bill designed to create more space for negotiators to cut a deal. But their plan B, which would create new oversight and audits of the FBI’s spying powers, stops short of adopting new warrant mandates that critics have demanded.

That’s raising questions about whether Republicans can pass the rule required to bring the FISA bill to the floor for a final vote. And Democrats, who have been cut out of the negotiations, are showing no appetite to bail out GOP leaders.

“We went along with [the 10-day extension] because we wanted to have negotiation, but they’re not consulting the Democrats,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), the senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. “That’s not legislative compromise, and that’s not representative government.”

Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, delivered a similar assessment. He said the House could have passed a compromise FISA bill weeks ago — will help from both conservatives and liberals — but the Republicans’ decision to move instead on a partisan bill dampened the Democrats’ appetite to help Republicans weather the storm.

“There was a package that could have gotten us to 290 [votes], no doubt in my mind. There may even still be,” Himes said. “But again, how much more climbing around and flaring tempers do we want to watch before we come back around to that idea?”

The DHS spending bill is also facing headwinds. The Senate voted unanimously on a bipartisan package to fund most of the department — minus U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol — but Johnson has refused to bring it to the floor amid conservative demands to hike funding for immigration enforcement.

Instead, House GOP leaders are demanding that the Senate pass a partisan GOP bill that funds the full DHS — a nonstarter among Democrats in both chambers.

The debate has sparked plenty of finger-pointing across the aisle, as leaders of both parties blame the other for the impasse, which is threatening to freeze pay for DHS employees in early May, when reshuffled money for that purpose is expected to dry up. Amid that fight, the Senate’s unanimous support for its bipartisan approach has complicated Johnson’s defense of his own partisan strategy — and fueled the Democrats’ calls for compromise.

“If they really do believe we need to act swiftly, there’s a vehicle to do it,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Monday. “Bring the bipartisan, Senate-passed bill to the House floor today, and it would fund the Department of Homeland Security in its entirety — with the exception of ICE and the violent Republican mass deportation machine.”

The farm bill is another issue giving GOP leaders fits. The legislation — which combines huge federal subsidies for farmers with food subsidies for low-income people — has traditionally united lawmakers from both parties, particularly those on the Agriculture Committee. But this year, Democrats on the panel say they were excluded from the crafting of the bill. As a result, most Democrats are lining up to oppose the package, not least because it aims to solidify the steep cuts to food assistance that Republicans used last year to help pay for tax cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

“We object to the policy,” Rep. Pete Aguilar (Calif.), chair of the House Democratic Caucus, said Tuesday. “And I think that an overwhelming amount of Democrats will object to the policy.”

The greater challenge to Johnson, however, has been within his own party, where a number of conservatives have balked at various provisions contained within the Republican bill.

Some of those GOP critics have attacked language blocking lawsuits against pesticide companies, which have been accused of covering up the detrimental health effects of some of their products. Other lawmakers were wary of the high cost of another provision allowing for year-round sales of E-15, an ethanol-infused biofuel.

In response to the outcry, GOP leaders on Tuesday were eyeing plans to allow votes to amend the pesticide language. They also stripped the E-15 language out of the larger farm package altogether and are now hoping to move it as a separate bill.

The last-minute tinkering did little to satisfy Democrats, who are showing little sympathy for the GOP leaders who cut them out of the negotiations on the larger bill.

“All along the way, Republicans have ignored the warning that this was going to be very, very difficult. And the best path was to negotiate with Democrats a bipartisan farm bill,” said Rep. Angie Craig (Minn.), the senior Democrat on the Agriculture Committee. “So this is the outcome of failed policy and failed process.”

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