House GOP clears key hurdle for FISA, ICE funding in dramatic vote

House Republican leaders on Wednesday cleared a major hurdle when they corralled members into adopting a rule to tee up consideration of two major pieces of legislation: reauthorization of the nation’s foreign spy powers and a budget blueprint to fund immigration enforcement.

The House voted 216-210 along party lines to adopt the rule. To do so, however, Republicans had to agree to drop a third piece of legislation initially also part of the same rule: the farm bill, which sets agriculture policy for the next five years.

Adoption of the rule, even with the concession, is a major victory for GOP leaders who held open the vote for more than two hours as they won over holdouts and convinced rebels, one-by-one, to change their votes from “no” to “yes.”

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) chatted with Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), the first no vote; she later flipped to vote “present” and then to “yes.”

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), who expressed outrage over some of her farm bill amendments not being made in order and long railed against FISA, had reportedly yelled at House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) and Agriculture Committee Chair GT Thompson (R-Pa.) on the floor, and had multiple conversations with leaders — before ultimately voting “yes.”

Boebert later told reporters that she would be fighting to deliver on her water provisions she wanted on the farm bill, and was told she would be a conference on the farm bill when the time comes to resolve differences with the Senate.

A large group of Republican leaders and holdouts huddled on the floor at one point and Rep. Chip Roy’s (R-Texas) booming voice could be heard from the gallery, as could Boebert’s and Luna’s. Roy, who opposed a “clean” FISA reauthorization, voted “yes.”

Reps. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.), Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.), Troy Nehls (R-Texas), Tim Burchett (Tenn.) Keith Self (Texas) and Scott Perry (Pa.) also switched their votes from “no” to “yes.” Various others Republicans who also had been withholding votes also slowly voted yes, including Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), Rep. Russel Fry (R-S.C.) and Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.).

Still, the path forward for the bills is uncertain, given late-stage changes to the measures that could very well be rejected by the Senate even if they do pass the House.

Republican leaders had offered numerous compromises and sweeteners to win over the holdouts — including an amendment vote to strip a pesticide provision; a measure to allow year-round E15 ethanol fuel sales added on to the farm bill; reforms to the foreign spy program; and tacking on a measure to ban the Federal Reserve from creating a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) upon passage.

Most pressing on Johnson’s agenda is renewing Section 702 of FISA, which would allow the government to spy on foreigners abroad without a warrant. The section is set to expire Thursday, and still needs to pass in the Senate.

A final vote on the FISA reauthorization bill is set for Wednesday afternoon.

The anti-CBDC compromise, however, could endanger the FISA bill’s ability to pass in the Senate, where Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said it was “dead on arrival” with the provision attached.

Johnson said that he speaks with Thune “all the time,” and the Senate is “watching this very closely and and hopefully they can process what we send them.”

“No one  — no one on the Republican side, anyway — wants to play around with letting these critical national security tools go unfunded or expire, so I think they’ll move it expeditiously,” Johnson said.

Hardline Republicans had pushed to tack on the measure which has previously passed the House, to the FISA bill — after the Senate several months ago refused to include it in the annual defense authorization bill. Anti-CBDC advocates see the FISA reauthorization as one of the few must-pass bills they have left where CBDC can be a rider that gets to the president’s desk.

But the rule also gives GOP leaders something of an escape hatch on FISA, by allowing a motion to suspend the rules to pass legislation under a fast-track process that requires a two-thirds vote of the House on Friday, May 1. Current House rules only allow such motions on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays. The measure gives Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) the option to advance a short-term FISA patch with Democratic votes if necessary.

Republicans are also set to consider a Senate-passed budget blueprint that would fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol using the special reconciliation process, which would bypass the need to get votes from Democrats in the Senate who were demanding reforms as a condition of funding.

That is part of a two-step plan to reopen DHS, with the White House and Senate amping up the pressure on the House to adopt a Senate-passed bill to fund the rest of the department as soon as the House approved the budget blueprint this week.

Johnson said after the vote that the budget resolution “will unlock the remaining funding for Homeland Security.”

Also in the midst of controversy is the farm bill, which will now need to go back to the Rules Committee.

In one apparent compromise, the rule included language that would tack on a bill to allow year-round E15 ethanol fuel sales to the Farm Bill before it is sent to the Senate. Corn-state Republicans have long pushed for the measure as part of the farm bill or other measure. The provision, however, caused heartburn for other Republicans.

“There’s still some negotiation, deliberation and consternation” about the farm bill and the E15 provision,” Johnson said after the vote. “And so we’re going to allow a little bit more time, for especially the E15 issue, to be worked through with members.”

It would also allow for an amendment vote from Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) to repeal provisions relating to pesticides, which opponents say would shield pesticide makers from liability and strip protections to keep pesticides out of drinking water. The amendment is a major priority for those aligned with the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement.

Luna said she was getting severe pushback over her amendment: “They’re getting super nasty. I also had a member that called me on the phone and accused me of being a damn liar, texted it to me and had to get talked to by the Speaker about backing off, not threatening me.”

After GOP leaders passed the mega-rule after flipping GOP rebels, Rep. Zach Nunn (R-Iowa) — a proponent of year-round E15 — yelled at Johnson on the floor: “Hey, Mr. Speaker, can we have a conversation?” Luna then yelled up to reporters in the press gallery that she was not responsible for delaying the farm bill because she got votes to remove the pesticide provision.

Hageman, who initially voted against the rule, told reporters that she thinks the E15 issue can be fixed.

“It isn’t that we have small refineries and we have E15. We can do both,” Hageman said.

Updated at 3:25 p.m.

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