House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer said his party would introduce the original Senate-passed Russia sanctions legislation later Wednesday, essentially daring the majority to act. | Zach Gibson/Getty Images Dems try to force House GOP's hand on Russia sanctions

House Democrats on Wednesday were trying to force the GOP’s hand in a bid to break the logjam over a bipartisan Senate-passed package of Russia sanctions.

The Russia bill, which passed the Senate 98-2, was being held up in the House amid Republican concerns over its impact on U.S. oil and gas companies — as well as clashes over a change that would limit House Democrats’ power to force a vote blocking President Donald Trump from easing sanctions. In an attempt to call out the GOP for what Democrats believe are stalling tactics, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer said his party would introduce the original Senate-passed Russia sanctions legislation later Wednesday, essentially daring the majority to act.


“There has been some assertion that we are holding up the bill,” the Maryland Democrat told reporters. “The majority leader can put the bill on the floor as early as 12:01 p.m. today. He has that authority. I would urge him to do so. And if he puts the Senate bill on the floor, we will support it.”

House Republicans had sought to revise language in the bill that allows any member to force a vote on blocking Trump from easing or ending sanctions against Moscow, but the change approved unanimously by the Senate limits that power to the GOP. Hoyer said he offered the GOP a compromise last week that was aimed at expediting action on the Senate-passed sanctions bill: giving only the majority leader or the minority leader the power to force the vote.

The idea was not accepted, however. Hoyer said he revisited the idea during a conversation with Speaker Paul Ryan on the floor Tuesday night and told Ryan that Democrats would be introducing their own version of the Senate bill this week.

“I don’t believe that having the president’s party in a position to protect him from any oversight is good policy for our country and, in fact, could be dangerous to our country,” Hoyer said.

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Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong said the GOP has not yet seen the minority’s proposal, but “we assume it will not include the House procedure fix the Senate unanimously passed” that changes House Democrats’ authority to force an anti-Trump vote. She urged House Democrats to relent and allow those Senate-passed changes to the sanctions bill to take effect.

“This is grandstanding and not a serious effort to resolve this issue and hold Russia accountable,” Strong added by email. “This new package effectively means that the Senate would have to consider it all over again, further delaying passing a sanctions package.”

Ryan himself told reporters Wednesday that “we want to move this Russia sanctions bill” as soon as possible, arguing that “you know me on this issue; I’m a Russia hawk.”

House and Senate Democrats also pointed fingers at one another on Tuesday over their failure to stop the GOP from making the change that limited Democratic power in the bill. Hoyer told reporters Wednesday that he had been on the phone with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s top Democrat, Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin, to flag the potential effect of the change as the Senate was unanimously approving it.

Senate Democrats “did not intend to” limit the power of their House counterparts when they signed off on the change, Hoyer said. “I think, frankly, they did not realize the consequence of striking some of the language which assured [power to call up] a vote by everybody.”

Senators in both parties, however, urged the House to break the impasse and pass their sanctions bill. Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) told reporters that he had spoken to Hoyer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) since Tuesday night — describing Democrats’ gesture Wednesday as a show of support for the bill, not a political gesture.

“It’s pretty amazing that things are wrapped around the axle when there’s really such strong support” for sanctioning Russia, Corker told reporters.

Corker also said he believes the oil and gas industry concerns with the bill that are shared by some House Republicans can be “easily resolved” through Treasury Department guidance.

“I hope that pressure will build soon. … Actually, Speaker Ryan and Speaker Pelosi could easily resolve the minority issue, too, if they chose,” Corker told reporters, lamenting the recent degree of “dilly-dallying around” about procedural concerns.

“This is not rocket science, to figure out how to do House review” of sanctions, Cardin said, asking his colleagues to “get it done and send us back the bill.”

While the House continues jockeying over the Russia measure, which also includes a package of popular and bipartisan sanctions against Iran, the White House continues to push for changes to the Senate-passed bill that give Trump more leeway to waive penalties against Vladimir Putin’s government without congressional intervention. GOP leaders have yet to signal they are receptive to that White House lobbying, but Democrats have long been concerned that Republicans are open to declawing the bill in the House before any vote to send it to Trump’s desk.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that the White House does not want this piece of legislation to pass,” Hoyer told reporters Wednesday. “For Republicans in the House of Representatives to be afraid and unwilling to allow even the minority leader to bring up a resolution of disapproval indicates to me that they are in a protective mode.”

But Hoyer wouldn’t say whether Democrats ultimately would oppose a Russian sanctions bill that ties the minority’s hands if Republicans brought such a proposal to the floor. Later on Wednesday, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) met with Hoyer, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.), and the committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, to discuss a way forward on the sanctions bill dispute — but no deal was reached.

Meanwhile, the State Department is expected to meet with Putin’s deputy foreign minister on Monday to discuss points of contention in U.S.-Russia relations, including the return of two Russian diplomatic compounds taken back by the Obama administration in December. The Senate-passed bill prohibits Trump from returning the compounds to Moscow without congressional approval.

“Absolutely, I’m worried” that State could return the compounds to Russia, Cardin said. “I’m worried the Trump administration could relax sanctions … nothing ever surprises me about what the Trump administration does.”

Rachael Bade contributed to this report.

