The Senate released the text of a long-awaited national security bill on Sunday that is expected to receive a vote by Wednesday.
The legislation is similar to the $118 billion supplemental that appropriators released in December. It would fund the war in Ukraine, provide security assistance to Israel and Taiwan, and funnel additional resources to the southern border.
Senate Republicans blocked that original package, however, over the immigration portion of the bill, which lacked policy changes to stem the record flow of border crossings.
The latest iteration incorporates a bipartisan compromise on the border, the product of four months of painstaking talks led by Sens. James Lankford (R-OK), Chris Murphy (D-CT), and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ).
Controversy has swirled around the details of that compromise. Conservatives opposed to the deal have simultaneously accused the negotiators of “secrecy” while panning supposed provisions of the agreement as tantamount to an “open borders” wish list.
The outlines of the deal, brokered by a bipartisan working group in conjunction with the White House, came into view ahead of the bill’s release. The legislation would tighten asylum standards and compel the president to shut down the border once crossings reach a weekly average of 5,000 per day.
But lawmakers, particularly Republicans, have waited with anticipation to view the actual text of the package ahead of a test vote Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has planned for Wednesday.
The chances of the bill becoming law are bleak. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), who favors H.R. 2, the House’s signature border bill, has already declared the compromise “dead on arrival” in the House.
Instead, Johnson is planning for a stand-alone vote on aid to Israel this week, a change of course from November when the House passed a $14.3 billion aid package to Israel that included spending cuts to the Internal Revenue Service, which Senate Democrats decried as a “poison pill” policy rider.
It’s also not clear what kind of support the package will have among Senate Republicans despite being backed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
Republican leadership hopes to get majority support, or 25 of their 49 members, but even that whip count is unclear, with former President Donald Trump lobbying against anything short of a “perfect” deal.
“I still favor trying to make law when you can,” McConnell said of Trump’s opposition on Tuesday but declined to speculate on the fate of the legislation.
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Most Democrats are expected to vote for the bill despite concern from progressives over the Israel portion of the supplemental. Already, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who caucuses with the Democrats, plans to introduce an amendment that would strike the billions in offensive weaponry for Israel as it wages war against Hamas.
The planned Wednesday vote is only the first procedural hurdle for the supplemental. It takes a week to move even the simplest legislation through the upper chamber, meaning Schumer will likely have to cancel part of the upcoming two-week recess to get the bill passed.
Emergency National Security Supplemental Bill Text by web-producers on Scribd