US House members defy leadership, to force vote on Ukraine aid

WASHINGTON, May 13 – A U.S. House of Representatives petition to force a floor vote on providing security aid to Ukraine and imposing new sanctions on Russia reached the 218-signature threshold to move ahead on Wednesday, the latest successful bid by lawmakers to defy the chamber’s Republican leadership.

California Representative Kevin Kiley, who switched his party affiliation to independent from Republican in March, signed the “discharge petition” on Wednesday, giving it enough signatures to force a vote in the House, likely in early June.

While many members of Congress from both parties have strongly supported Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, many of President Donald Trump’s closest Republican allies – including some House and Senate leaders – have grown cooler since he returned to the White House in January 2025 and aid to the Kyiv government has slowed down.

Russia and Ukraine have been pummelling each other with missiles, drones and artillery, with no end to the war in sight. Peace talks are stalled, with Ukraine rejecting Putin’s demand that it surrender territory it has successfully defended since 2022.

A discharge petition allows 218 or more representatives to force House votes, even if the legislation is opposed by Republican Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, who sets the agenda in the chamber.

Two Republican House members, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Don Bacon of Nebraska, had signed the petition before Kiley did so on Wednesday.

Introduced in April 2025 by Representative Gregory Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Ukraine Support Act is divided into three sections.

The first affirms support for Ukraine and NATO and includes measures to help Ukraine rebuild, including creating the position of a special coordinator for Ukraine reconstruction.

The second would authorize more than $1 billion in security assistance for Kyiv and up to $8 billion more in support via direct loans, and the third would impose stiff sanctions and export controls on Russia, including on financial institutions, oil and mining and Russian officials.

Discharge petitions were once a rarely used procedural tool in the House. But with Johnson’s Republicans’ narrow majorities in the chamber – there are currently 217 Republicans, 212 Democrats, one independent and five vacancies – they recently have been more successful.

In April, the House voted to extend temporary protections for 350,000 Haitians living in the U.S. after a successful discharge petition. Last year, enough House members signed a discharge petition to force a vote directing the Justice Department to release filed related to deceased convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. REUTERS