GOP defectors

GOP defectors threaten budget vote

Speaker Mike Johnson will try to steer his chamber’s razor-thin majority toward backing the $95 billion funding plan for the Iran war and farm aid.

By Meredith Lee Hill, Mia McCarthy and Calen Razor

A critical mass of House Republicans on Wednesday are threatening to defy Speaker Mike Johnson and vote against a budget framework of party priorities.

Johnson will try to steer his chamber’s razor-thin majority toward backing the $95 billion funding plan for the Iran war and farm aid. The speaker can lose no more than two votes — assuming full attendance — as GOP leadership scrambles to win support from all corners of their conference before recess begins Thursday.

The White House and leaders are working hard to sway the remaining undecided Republicans by offering more details on the plan’s SAVE America Act election security provisions — a priority for President Donald Trump. They’re also promising a fourth reconciliation bill to sweep-in members’ wishlist items that were left out of Recon 3.0.

One member GOP leaders see as virtually immovable is Rep. Thomas Massie.

“It’s a slush fund for the unauthorized Iran war with a payoff to farmers who are suffering from fuel and fertilizer price hikes due to the war, as well as from Trump’s trade policies,” Massie told POLITICO.

Rep. Warren Davidson has also told POLITICO he plans to vote against the budget plan, noting he would need to see pay-fors to get on board.

We’re also watching Reps. Tim Burchett and Kevin Kiley. Kiley said Tuesday he is “very unlikely” to vote for the resolution and unlikely to be convinced otherwise. Meanwhile, Rep. Tom Barrett, who has voted to advance several Democratic-led Iran war powers resolutions this year, responded: “We’ll see.”

House GOP leaders are trying to boost buy-in by reading more members in on details of a more than $1 billion proposal to “enforce” the citizenship and voter ID mandates in the SAVE America Act provisions of the plan, along with other potential funding.

But what that “enforcement” would look like is at the center of heated talks with rank and file GOP skeptics and Republican leadership, according to four people who were granted anonymity to discuss private talks.

“I don’t know,” Johnson told POLITICO Tuesday night when we asked him what he wants that enforcement policy to look like. “We’ve got a lot of negotiating to go through.”

Majority Leader Steve Scalise said “all that’s being worked out still.”

Dangling the promise of a fourth reconciliation bill to members is another tactic leaders are leveraging in negotiations.

Many Republicans remain skeptical about a post-midterms fourth reconciliation bill actually coming to fruition — and even more skeptical it’d include the provisions they want that didn’t make it into Recon 3.0.

“I’m not going to talk about reconciliation at all —3, 4, 10, 17,” House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith told Kelsey Brugger on Tuesday when asked about GOP leaders’ 4.0 promise. His panel was notably left out of the latest plans.

Asked if he would still vote for the Recon 3.0 plans today, Smith said “I told you I’m not going to talk about reconciliation.”