The Senate on Tuesday passed a long-delayed $95 billion package with wide bipartisan support after both sides of Capitol Hill have struggled for months to send aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
The final vote was 79-18. Fifteen Republicans voted with three Democrats against the bill. Forty-eight Democrats and 31 Republicans voted for the bill.
The legislation next goes to President Joe Biden to sign it into law, who said he would sign the package Wednesday. Its passage is a significant victory for the US president, congressional Democrats and Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell, who long pushed to send aid to Ukraine even as the right wing of his party increasingly soured on support for Kyiv.
There are some legislators who agree with a Ukraine bill and some who agree with an Israel bill. However, some would like to pass only one or the other. So what one does is to create a combined bill and find some number of legislators who will support both. The actual bill, as I recall, isn’t just Ukraine aid and Israel aid, but also Taiwan aid and the TikTok divestment requirement and involved discussions spanning all of the House, Senate, and Biden personally, so there was probably a lot discussion.
It’s not an uncommon practice; part of getting legislation through is figuring out what needs to go in to get enough legislators onboard. “I’ll support X if you support Y.”