Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wis., emerges from the chamber just after key conservatives in the rebellious House Freedom Caucus helped to kill passage of the farm bill which had been a priority for GOP leaders, at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, May 18, 2018. The 213-198 vote is an embarrassing blow to House Republican leaders, who had hoped to tout its new work requirements for recipients of food stamps. (Photo: J. Scott Applewhite, AP)

WASHINGTON — In a major blow to House Speaker Paul Ryan, Republican leaders failed to garner enough votes for a sweeping GOP farm bill amid a revolt from hardline conservatives who opposed the bill over an unrelated immigration fight.

Friday's 198-to-213 vote was an embarrassing defeat for Ryan, R-Wis., who had championed the farm bill as a major step toward welfare reform but saw that GOP priority squelched by members of his own Republican conference. Thirty Republicans, conservatives and moderates alike, voted against the House leadership bill, along with all 183 Democrats who were present.

While the bill faced almost no chance in the Senate —where legislation requires 60 votes and therefore the backing of at least 10 Democrats — supporters said passage would be considered a success for House Republicans. President Trump also supported the measure. White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said the president was "disappointed in the result of today’s vote."

Ryan and other GOP leaders will now have to grapple with the volatile issue of immigration to satisfy arch-conservatives who want the House to vote on a hardline measure that would slash legal immigration and authorize construction of President Trump’s border wall. Members of the House Freedom Caucus said Republican leaders had failed to make good on promises to deal with the immigration issue, and their only leverage was to hold up the farm bill.

Ryan is also being squeezed by moderates who support a softer approach to immigration, and they will almost certainly be emboldened by Friday's vote to ratchet up their push for a bipartisan immigration bill.

More immediately, Friday's vote opened a new rift among Republicans, with many rank-and-file Republicans furious with the conservative faction for tanking a farm bill that included a major conservative priority: adding work requirements to the food stamp program.

Meadows dismissed the vote as just a temporary setback and said the party would regroup and be able to pass both the farm bill and immigration legislation.

"it’s not a fatal blow it’s just a reorganize,” Meadows said.

Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., leaves after the weekly House Republican Conference meeting March 20, 2018 at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. Meadows and the group of conservatives he leads in the House Freedom Caucus sank the GOP-led farm bill Friday. (Photo: Alex Wong, Getty Images)

But his Republican colleagues were agitated at the last minute failure.

“Nancy Pelosi and her allies just won a big victory taking down the farm bill,” fumed Rep. Mario Diaz Balart, R-Fla.

Democrats were thrilled by the bill’s defeat for both policy and political reasons. Not only did they help kill a bill they said would shred the safety net but it also highlighted GOP dysfunction heading into a tough election season.

Rep. Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican, said the broader Republican conference was growing increasingly frustrated by the tactics of the hardliners.

"I don’t know why you would hold this vote hostage and do that to us on the floor," Cole said.

Cole noted that House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., had already promised the Freedom Caucus a vote in June on an immigration bill, sponsored by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., that would slash legal immigration and authorize new funding for border security, including President Trump's proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexican border.

As a concession to moderates, it would also provide temporary legal protections to the so-called DREAMers, undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children. But some Republicans want a permanent solution for DREAMers and say that the bill's other provisions go too far.

DREAMers have been in legislative limbo since President Trump ended the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program last year. In the meantime, federal courts have forced the administration to keep the program running, setting up a possible Supreme Court showdown later this year.

Trump has said he supports the Goodlatte bill, but it does not have enough Republican votes to pass the House.

Moderate Republicans are using a rare maneuver known as a "discharge petition" to try to force a vote on four immigration bills, including the Goodlatte bill that Meadows and his band of hardliners are pushing for. But there is only one that is likely to pass the House — with broad support from Democrats. That bill would grant U.S. citizenship to some DREAMers, strengthen border security, and leave the legal immigration system as is.

If a majority of House members sign on to the discharge petition, it would go straight to the floor. The way the rule is written would mean that the legislation with the most votes would be the only one adopted. Ryan and other GOP leaders have blasted the petition maneuver, saying it would hand power over to House Democrats on immigration.

“The unfortunate thing is by this show today it gives more leverage on the discharge petition, which I think is highly destructive,” said the House GOP's chief deputy whip Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C.

McHenry said it would only be a matter of hours before more Republican centrists signed the discharge petition and forced GOP leaders to deal with a potential immigration free-for-all. If all Democrats sign the petition, Republicans need at least 25 of their own members to join. So far, 20 Republicans had signed on.

Read more:

House members use rare maneuver to try to force vote on legislation to protect DREAMers

Paul Ryan tries to squelch GOP immigration rebellion before it gets too much traction

Supreme Court snubs Trump, keeps DACA immigration program in place for now

House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., would not commit on Friday to a vote on immigration. He insisted Republicans would come back to the farm bill, though he did not say how they would get fresh support for the just-defeated bill.

"We’re not done with this," Scalise said as he left the Capitol Friday. "Obviously we’re going to keep working."

But Democrats were already looking forward to the possibility of working on a bipartisan bill.

“We’re willing to help, we’re willing to go back to the drawing board and try to fix it,” said Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson, the top Democrat on the Agriculture Committee.

The current $868 billion House bill would have set food and farm policy for the next five years — affecting everything from crop subsidies to rural development to land conservation.

The most contentious element of the GOP-crafted bill would have restricted eligibility in the food stamp program and required millions of low-income Americans who receive nutritional assistance to work at least 20 hours a week or enroll in a job training program.

Democrats and some moderates opposed those changes — saying that many food stamp recipients already work and the new requirements could cost families vital nutritional assistance. Every Democrat opposed the bill, leaving little wiggle room for Republicans to lose their own members.

With both moderate and conservative opposition, the measure fell short of the 206 votes it needed to pass.

A five-year farm bill was defeated in the GOP-controlled House in June 2013 because conservatives were concerned about spending and Democrats angered by cuts in the food stamp program.

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