Republicans Kill Senate Border Bill By Doing Something Unprecedented

Gage Skidmore/Creative Commons

On Tuesday, Republicans backed away from the foreign aid-border security spending package concocted in secret by bipartisan leaders, effectively killing the Senate bill.

The Hill reports, "The effort to pass the Senate’s bipartisan border bill collapsed Tuesday after Republicans backed away from the package, effectively punting on the issue until after November and infuriating Democrats in the process."

The story continued:

Top Senate Republicans said they would block the chamber from beginning to consider the bill, with more than half the conference declaring their outright opposition. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) had planned to bring the $118 billion supplemental to the floor Wednesday.

That seemed to mark the death of the proposal crafted by Sens. James Lankford (R-Okla.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) — less than 48 hours after they unveiled the package they spent months negotiating. “It looks to me, and most of our members, we have no real chance here to make a law,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said during his weekly press conference. 

The right thing happened Tuesday night, but the way in which it came together is somewhat unprecedented, a point zerohedge made on X.

This is true. Leadership's usual gimmick of releasing very long bills - this one was 370 pages - and then asking members to vote on them almost immediately got torpedoed by an online army demanding transparency and accountability.

It didn't take long to figure out just how bad this bill was in its sum but also its many parts.

It's a solid blueprint for how to pushback against leadership in the future. ForAmerica was a part of that fight this week and will be part of it again in the future.

This is how we act. Let's not forget it.