Credit: (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

When is a majority not enough to pass a bill? When it’s a House vote on military funding for Israel.  

In February, the House took up a bill (HR 7217) to provide $17.6 billion in military aid to Israel. The final vote was 250-180, ordinarily sufficient to pass. But because of a procedural twist, the vote fell short. 

That twist has become a tripwire in Congress, a legislative landmine for bills to keep the federal government open, authorizing agencies from carrying out their work, dispatching aid abroad and writing laws that could benefit the American public, including some specific to New Jersey residents. 

For years, Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-5th) has called for changes to the tax code to raise a limit on how much people can deduct on their taxes. The votes likely exist on his proposal or something similar, from many Democrats and plenty of Republicans from California or New York, to pass the House. But that’s highly unlikely to happen soon. 

Same goes for approving an annual bill to authorize the Pentagon and update rules that govern the Federal Aviation Administration, a point of interest for Rep. Rob Menendez (8th), who wants to curb noise in North Jersey from planes and helicopters. So too for military aid for Ukraine, something Reps. Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-9th) and Mikie Sherrill (D-11th), among others, want to see passed swiftly. 

“Usually if you’re in the majority and you can get the minority to support your legislation, that’s considered a win,” Sherrill said in February, when she talked with reporters about pathways to a bipartisan Ukraine bill. “In this really weird majority, that is actually considered to undermine legislation.” 

Far-right Republican faction 

The February vote on Israel helps explain what’s going on.  

Republicans hold the House majority, 218-213, but their grasp is more tenuous than that five-vote margin shows, and will narrow further on April 19, when Rep. Mike Gallager, a Wisconsin Republican, is expected to resign from Congress. 

In a chamber where a few members can swing a vote, a faction of far-right Republicans has made it difficult for the past year and a half for Republican leaders to corral votes and pass bills. 

More on the difficulties in Congress

To become speaker in 2023, Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from Bakersfield, Calif., cut a deal with the right wing of his party: Vote for me, and I’ll give you two big things.  

One was a rule called a “motion to vacate” — a maneuver that gives one lawmaker the power to call for a vote to oust the speaker, following a vote of the full chamber. That rule ultimately was McCarthy’s demise. Florida Republican Matt Gaetz invoked the move last year, and the House booted McCarthy.  

The second thing McCarthy gave the archconservatives was more seats on the Rules Committee, a small but powerful panel of lawmakers. 

Comprising nine Republicans and four Democrats, the Rules Committee works like a valve.  

When someone introduces a bill, it goes to the committee with jurisdiction on the bill’s topic, the committee votes on it, then it arrives at the Rules Committee. The Rules Committee — as the name suggests — votes on a set of agreed standards about the bill, like how long to debate it on the House floor and if it can be amended, before the legislation finally gets a full vote from all members. 

The power of the speaker  

That’s how things are supposed to work. 

Speakers have enormous sway over who gets on what committee, and McCarthy named three hardline Republicans — Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Chip Roy of Texas and Ralph Norman of South Carolina — appeasing them almost certainly making it harder to pass bills. 

So now, when Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisianan who currently holds the post, strategizes about how to pass bills and what legislation can get through, he must think about if it will clear the Rules Committee. 

Voting together, Democrats and the three hard-right Republicans on the committee can tank a bill — the trio is largely skeptical of foreign aid spending — blocking it from getting a full vote. 

In her February call with reporters, Sherrill outlined the difficulty of securing Ukrainian aid even when a solid majority of the full House wants to vote yes. 

“We know that in the House we’ve traditionally had about 300 votes on Ukrainian aid,” Sherrill said. “In an ideal world, we’d get a rule and then pass it with all the support it has,” she said. “But I think, given the makeup of the Rules Committee, that seems unlikely.” 

On that Feb. 6 vote on Israel aid, Republican leaders had a maneuver of their own: suspend the rules. 

Suspending the rules is not unusual, but it’s generally reserved for uncontroversial things likely to sail through, like naming post offices, directing an agency to write a report, congratulating a college sports team for winning a title game, condemning terrorism or scolding a violent regime. 

These rules are not set in law. Every Congress writes them and can rewrite them. 

The caveat is that so-called “suspension bills” must pass with a two-thirds majority, or 290 “aye” votes if all the House’s 435 seats are occupied, though that number is lower now, due to vacancies. 

The Israel bill, which may have died in Rules, didn’t clear that higher bar. 

Since he became speaker in October, Johnson has often sidestepped the Rules Committee and passed bills using this method that requires a supermajority, blocks amendments and limits debate.  

In his speakership, five different bills to fund the federal government have passed the House under this technique, including a $1.2 trillion package the House cleared in late March, eking out passage with a 286-134 vote. This Congress also passed an annual military policy bill and approved the Federal Aviation Administration to keep operating under this technique.  

The political battle lines in the House have led to unusual political allies, with most House Democrats and some more moderate Republicans voting for these bills, leaving many of the right-most members fuming that they don’t have a sufficiently conservative speaker 

For the recent spending bill, more Democrats (185) in the House voted for it than Republicans (101), even though Republicans have the majority in the chamber — Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-12th) mentioned in an interview with NJ Spotlight News. 

“Republicans know that they’ve got to come to us to get something done,” Watson Coleman said in January, when Congress was debating a different batch of funding bills. 

Johnson’s alliance could soon come crashing down, something that would have repercussions for myriad issues. 

The concession that McCarthy gave to become speaker that allowed one member to kick start the process of ousting him as speaker exists for Johnson, and his footing is starting to shake. 

Republicans accused Johnson of betraying their party by cutting a deal with Democrats. 

“This bill will absolutely destroy our majority and will tell every single one of our voters that this majority is a failure,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, said during the debate over the latest legislation to fund the government.  

Calling the bill “an atrocious attack on the public,” Greene filed a resolution last month to remove Johnson.  

“It’s more of a warning than a pink slip,” Greene told reporters on the Capitol steps. “We need a new speaker.” 

That could happen after Congress returns this week from its two-week break, plunging the House into chaos, though some lawmakers and staffers have indicated Democrats could be willing to protect Johnson from being ousted in exchange for votes on a deal that sends weapons to Ukraine, locked in a defensive war against Russia. 

If Johnson is deposed, whoever is speaker next will likely still have to navigate Republican infighting, a powerful far-right Rules Committee and a high threshold to pass bills.  

From Gottheimer’s tax goal, to helicopter noise in Menendez’s district, to helping Ukraine in its defensive war against Russia, the majority frequently does not rule.