U.S. House moves foreign aid measures forward

• See how Mississippi’s four Congressmen voted on Saturday in bills to support Israel, Ukraine and more.

On Saturday, the U.S. House of Representatives held a series of votes on bills to provide foreign aid to Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan, while also passing legislation to ban the social media app TikTok placed within a measure backing sanctions against Iran.

The U.S. Senate previously passed similar legislation in February. The White House has been pressuring Speaker Mike Johnson (R) to bring the bills up for a floor vote for months.

Speaker Johnson, already facing calls to vacate the chair, could be forced into a similar situation as former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, as a small segment of House Republicans are increasingly displeased with his moving such legislation forward.

As reported by the New York Times, Johnson “split the package into three parts, each of which received its own vote, added a fourth bill with Republican priorities as a sweetener and melded it all together again once everything passed.”

“The plan, laid out in a rule that passed on Friday, was concocted to capitalize on the pools of support for each part of the $95 billion package, while preventing opposition to any one piece from taking down all of them,” the New York Times noted.

Here are the total votes each measure received in the House:

• Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act: 366-58
• Ukraine Security Supplemental Appropriations Act: 311-112
• Indo-Pacific Security Supplemental Appropriations Act: 385-34
• 21st Century Peace through Strength Act (includes Iran sanctions and TikTok ban): 360-58

As for how Mississippi’s congressional delegation voted on each measure, the chart below shows the votes of Congressmen Trent Kelly (R-MS 1), Bennie Thompson (D-MS 2), Michael Guest (R-MS 3) and Mike Ezell (R-MS 4) on the three foreign aid bills:

All four Congressmen also voted in favor of the Iran sanctions and TikTok ban measure.