House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) successfully wrangled his conference to support a procedural rule to allow three major pieces of legislation to be considered on the House floor.
The House voted 216-210 to tee up votes on an extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the farm bill, and a party-line budget resolution to fund parts of the Department of Homeland Security.
Given the narrow House majority and absences, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) could only afford to lose one Republican vote on the measure. At one point in the hourslong vote, there were as many as eight Republicans who cast a no vote.
The initial defections came from Reps. Harriet Hageman (R-WY), Tim Burchett (R-TN), Troy Nehls (R-TX), Keith Self (R-TX), Eli Crane (R-AZ), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Scott Perry (R-PA), and Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL).
Johnson could be seen huddling with GOP holdouts throughout the vote as he tried to whip support for the measure.
Luna was the first to change her vote to “present” after speaking with Johnson. She then flipped her vote to a “yes.” The House Rules Committee approved the Florida Republican’s amendment for consideration on the House floor on Tuesday regarding pesticide liability labeling.
Biggs and Crane were the next to flip from “no” to “yes.” Following suit were Hageman, Perry, Nehls, Self, and Burchett. Both Hageman and Biggs are retiring to run for governor of their respective states.
Johnson also succeeded in flipping Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), who was one of the most high-profile opponents of the measure. Boebert had previously declared she would not support the measure after her amendments to the farm bill were blocked by the House Rules Committee.
“Republicans on the committee unanimously voted against them and they will not even be considered for a floor vote,” Boebert wrote in a post on X. “Farmers and ranchers in my district are counting on me to be their voice in DC and our ‘leadership’ is not letting me do my job. I am a NO on the Rule.”
Boebert was even seen by reporters yelling at House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) and House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn Thompson (R-PA) at the start of Wednesday’s vote. Despite not casting a vote initially, Boebert voted in favor of the measure after talking to Johnson.
The procedural measure was passed out of the House Rules Committee on Tuesday evening after GOP leadership spent two days negotiating with Republican holdouts from differing factions over the FISA, immigration enforcement funding, and provisions in the farm bill regarding pesticides and year-round sales of the gasoline-ethanol blend called E15.
To overcome the impasse, Republican leadership made a two-part deal with holdouts to attach a ban on central digital bank currency to the three-year FISA extension demanded by privacy hawks, as well as tack on a bill to allow the year-round sale of E15, as asked for by rural Republicans.
This story is breaking and will be updated.