Less than a month ago, a huge bipartisan Senate majority voted to honor the late Sen. Lindsey Graham and pass legislation he pushed aimed at sanctioning Russia’s trading partners.
Now the bill is at serious risk of languishing in the House, where it is suffering from significant Democratic opposition, lack of Republican enthusiasm and fading impetus to honor the late South Carolina senator.
GOP leaders omitted it from a list of bills to be voted on this week, and as top Republican lawmakers filed into the Capitol Monday after a five-week summer recess, none said passing the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia Act was anywhere near top of mind.
“We just came from a chairmen’s meeting, and nobody brought it up,” House Rules Chair Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) said in an interview.
Asked whether the bill might pass through her committee on the way to the House floor, she said, “I have no idea. Nobody’s talking about it.”
Speaker Mike Johnson acknowledged an uphill battle Monday and was noncommittal on whether the bill would hit the House floor after passing the Senate on an 86-11 vote.
“We’ll see,” Johnson said, blaming Democratic opposition for the uncertainty. “We’ve been very consistent on taking a strong hand against Russia. So we’ll see what happens.”
The measure’s backers in the House and Senate argue it would give the White House new leverage as it leans on Russia to end the war in Ukraine — including by handing President Donald Trump new tariff tools.
But with the GOP majority split over intervening in Russia’s war with Ukraine and many Democrats wary of giving Trump any new tariff powers, the bill doesn’t appear to be a top priority for Republican leaders as they plan out their final legislative sprint before the election.
Republicans are also openly speculating whether Johnson will keep the House in session for four weeks in September as scheduled — particularly if lawmakers pass a bill as expected Tuesday to punt government funding to December.
Johnson is already facing internal resistance to getting his scheduled bills on the floor this week, with some hard-right members unhappy about how GOP leaders have handled government funding and other issues. If they vote down a procedural measure setting up debate on those bills Tuesday, that could spell the end of the pre-election House session.
“I don’t know if we’re going to pass anything,” said Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas), one of the ultraconservatives threatening to frustrate the leadership’s plans.
At the same time, a handful of hawkish Republicans are warning that the House needs to stay and bring the sanctions bill across the finish line before heading home for campaign season.
“I think it’s very important to pass the sanctions bill,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), a defense hawk who is retiring from the House. “It’s a failure to not do so.”
Even if leaders make a push to get the sanctions bill on the floor, it’s unclear if it has enough Republican support to pass. Several conservatives who have vocally opposed Ukraine aid in the past said they haven’t looked into the legislation yet.
“Haven’t seen it. Haven’t heard about it. All I can say is in 14 years I’ve never voted to sanction a sovereign country,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said in an interview Monday.
While leaders could seek to skirt Republican opposition by using a fast-track procedure requiring a two-thirds-majority vote, it’s unclear if there are enough Democrats to push it over that threshold.
Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries expressed “serious concerns” with the measure at a news conference Monday, saying top Democrats are worried that the bill “risks providing tariff and sanctions authority to Donald Trump and his administration that we believe they will abuse.”
The Democrats who are opposed include the party’s leaders on the Foreign Affairs and Ways and Means committees — Reps. Greg Meeks of New York and Richard Neal of Massachusetts, respectively — who argue that Trump already has all the tariff powers he needs.
“Donald Trump already has ample authority to impose sanctions on the companies, individuals, and vessels propping up a Russian war machine that continues its deadly attacks on Ukraine,” they wrote in a Monday joint statement with Democratic Rep.. Don Beyer of Virginia and Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. “Congress does not need to greenlight new tariff authority for the President to impose those sanctions on Russia today.”
Rep. Brad Schneider of Illinois, leader of the centrist New Democrat Coalition, also opposes the sanctions bill and said in an interview Monday, “I’m opposed to giving the executive branch more authority that was rightly placed with the legislative branch a very long time ago.”
“We’ll see and evaluate if it comes to the floor,” Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, the No. 2 House Democrat, said in an interview. “But there’s a great deal of concern about giving this president, who continues to drive up costs with tariffs for working Americans, even more authority to do that.”
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