House Republicans find way to block Russia sanctions bill from Senate

Over a week ago, the Senate passed legislation to slap Russia and Iran with new sanctions in a 98-2 vote. Last week, however, the House parliamentarian flagged the legislation with a "blue slip" violation saying that as a revenue bill, it violated the constitutional requirement that it should have originated in the House rather than the Senate.

A similar violation took place with the American Health Care Act (AHCA) earlier in the month where it was flagged under the Byrd Rule by the Senate parliamentarian.

As reported by The Hill in an article titled: "House Republicans block Russia sanctions bill", Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) said that the House would preserve the Constitution in blocking the sanctions bill. He also added that the Senate could take the bill back, update it and bring it back through.

House rejects sanctions bill due to 'blue slip' issue

Rep. Brady said that this was not a partisan issue but rather a constitutional issue and that he was confident they could push this legislation forward. The appearance to some critics is that the Republican-led House might not want to put sanctions on Russia and are stalling for some reason.

But a spokeswoman for House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) suggested that the House could simply not consider the Senate bill in its current form.

She also added that Speaker Ryan supported sanctions against Russia -- especially against Iran -- and that they would consider the next steps with their colleagues through the Senate. Rep. Brady is the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee who worked together with the parliamentarian to push back against the bill citing it as being in violation of the Constitution's Origination Clause which is what they refer to as the "blue slip" problem.

Republicans blamed for stalling Russia sanctions bill

Democrats suggested that the House Republicans were trying to delay the bill due to push back from the Trump administration who is in favor of lifting sanctions off of Russia.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said that House Republicans were being too soft on Russia and that the sanctions bill needed to be passed as soon as possible.

Certainly, House Democrats would know about the constitutional problems bills encounter to know if the "blue flag" was a real issue. Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) showed this was the case as he provided more specifics about how the violation and what Republicans could have done to get around it, saying that all they had to do was introduce an indention House bill.

Rep. Engel also stated that this would not be the last excuse they would hear from Republicans. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) suggested the same fix that Engel had and he also suggested that there may not actually be any "blue slip" problems.

Even further, he also said that with the logic House Republicans were using to block the sanctions bill, that the Senate would never be able to complete any sanctions legislation to send to the House.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said on Wednesday that "the Senate screwed up" and that the House would either send the sanctions bill back or they would write their own, without providing a time table. The sanctions are said to be a result of Russia meddling in the 2016 presidential election and aggressive actions taken in the Ukraine and Syria.