House Republicans scramble to advance surveillance, DHS and farm bills

Mike Johnson spent hours on and around the House chamber floor trying to keep three separate Republican fights from collapsing into one. By the end of the day, House Republicans had cleared a procedural hurdle 216-210, but the vote only underscored how hard it was for Johnson to assemble a governing majority on the surveillance bill, Department of Homeland Security funding and a farm package all at once.

The most urgent deadline was the expiring spy authority at the center of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was set to lapse Thursday. GOP leaders agreed to pair its extension with a ban on a central bank digital currency, a concession aimed at satisfying hard-line Republicans. The political payoff inside the House was immediate, but Senate leaders signaled the combined measure was not likely to advance, leaving Johnson to manage the optics of a win that may not survive the next chamber.

The fight over the farm bill exposed a different fracture. House GOP leaders had planned to revive the package this week, only to postpone the vote after a Republican revolt during a procedural vote and send the bill back to the House Rules Committee. The measure would be the first blanket reauthorization of agriculture programs since 2018, even though it was due for reauthorization in 2023. House Agriculture Chair G.T. Thompson said passing it would be a “morale boost” for rural America ahead of the midterm elections, but the path forward remained tied up in a dispute over year-round sales of the E15 ethanol-gasoline blend. Midwest and farm-state Republicans objected to Johnson’s decision to decouple that provision from the bill, while fiscal hawks balked at estimates that it would cost $1 billion.

At the same time, Johnson was pressing for changes to the Senate-passed Homeland Security funding bill. He said Monday that the legislation was “problematic” and would have to be changed because, as written, it would effectively zero out funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. That clash threatened to prolong the standoff over DHS even as Republicans faced pressure to avoid an all-out shutdown of immigration-enforcement agencies.

Taken together, the fights showed the strain inside House Republican leadership: hard-liners rallied by Chip Roy resisting the budget plan, farm-state Republicans withholding support over E15, and Johnson trying to move a spy bill, DHS funding and the farm bill in the same week. The question now is not whether Johnson can win isolated votes, but whether he can still turn a fractured conference into a functioning majority when the deadlines pile up.