House Republicans threaten to force Russia sanctions vote after giving leadership 'one last chance'
A pair of House Republicans could soon mount an effort to force a chamber-wide vote on sanctioning Russia for its war in Ukraine after months of back-and-forth between the House,...
By Fox News · Fox News
A pair of House Republicans could soon mount an effort to force a chamber-wide vote on sanctioning Russia for its war in Ukraine after months of back-and-forth between the House, Senate and White House yielded little movement on the issue. "This coming week, Brian Fitzpatrick's sanctions bill…ripens, so we can actually submit it as a discharge petition on Monday or Tuesday, and I'll sign that," Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., told Fox News Digital. "But it's got to start from scratch," he added. "We've got to get 218 signatures on it, and so that has a lot more work to do there, but it's a really good bill that Brian has worked on both sides of the aisle to get it right. And I think it's one that could have support in the Senate." A discharge petition is a mechanism for forcing a vote on legislation over the objections of House majority leadership. Historically, they're a rarely used measure, given the petition needs signatures from a majority of House lawmakers — and most members of the party in power are traditionally wary of crossing their leaders in that way. TRUMP'S UKRAINE DEADLINE SPARKS RIFT ON CAPITOL HILL AMID STALLED PEACE TALKS But for Bacon, it's a matter of right versus wrong that he believes will be remembered for years to come. "Someday in the history books, it's going to read which leaders stood up, which ones were [Winston Churchills] and which ones were [Neville Chamberlains]. Chamberlain gave away land in Czechoslovakia to appease Hitler. And Hitler said all he wanted was the Sudetenland, and then a year later, he invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia. Then a year later he invaded Poland," Bacon said. "We've got to know a bad guy when we see one, and [Russian President Vladimir Putin] is a bad guy. He's made clear, it's not just about Ukraine. He wants to regain the rest of what the Soviet Union had. And so history is being written, and I want to be on the right side. I hope every Republican does." Fitzpatrick introduced a bill in December aimed at sanctio…