The procedural picture on exactly how the House will vote on consideration of the war supplemental has cleared up, and you're not going to like it.
As the question is framed, the House will be voting on a straight-up cave-in to the Senate position, i.e., that the supplemental should fund some limited number of domestic priorities plus the war efforts, but not the additional money for aid to the states, teacher retention, etc.
If the motion passes today, that would mean the very complex and carefully structured rule passed by the House back on July 1st was all for naught. Remember, though, that the motion is being brought to the floor under suspension of the rules, which requires a 2/3 vote to pass. Sadly, it now appears there's some chance that that could actually happen.
How did we get here? Well, if you're interested, take a few minutes to review the details in the posts listed below.
Together, these posts describe the fine line the House leadership had to walk in order to give the various factions of the Democratic Caucus a chance to have votes on the different approaches they favored, chief among them the insistence of House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-WI-07) that the House not agree to the Senate's demand for war funding without demanding funds for other domestic priorities as their price. It was a bold attempt to leverage moderate and conservative anxiety about the need for war funding (lest anyone invoke the dreaded "support the troops" attack against them), but also viewed as a less-than-principled sell out by activists opposed to the wars and/or those who hoped to see the Democrats' campaign pledge to stop funding those wars through supplementals strictly honored.
House Democrats did indeed construct a complex rule that allowed for votes on several proposals aimed at bringing the Afghanistan war to a conclusion, and one including additional spending on emergency domestic priorities, plus a special provision requiring that at least one such proposal be adopted before the bill would be allowed to proceed to the Senate for additional action. That very unusual rule design guaranteed that at least one House demand would be written into the bill before it was presented again to the Senate.
And in fact the House did end up attaching the additional funding as its ransom for the war money. But after all the effort and complexity, the Senate simply said, "No thanks," and the House is now set to vote on whether or not to say, "Oh, OK. Sorry."
Technically, the vote will be on a motion that the House recede from its amendment to the Senate amendment, meaning that they'll vote on withdrawing the amendment they fought so hard to pave the way for with that complex rule, and instead agree to the bill as the Senate sent it back to them at the end of May.
Earlier today, I noted that the motion would be coming under suspension of the rules and thought that perhaps that indicated that they weren't particularly eager for it to pass all that easily, since doing things that way would require a 2/3 vote. But as the day has worn on, it seems the thinking is more that Republicans might in fact support passage of the Senate version of the bill on the theory that it: 1) funds the war, which they like, and; 2) represents a defeat for House Democrats who wanted additional domestic spending to save teacher jobs, aid the states, etc. Of course, the Senate version of the bill is basically the original House bill from March, with both war money and additional domestic funding tacked on, meaning that for House Republicans to help pass this motion today, they'll have to vote for domestic spending they originally opposed, even though the levels of such spending have only increased since they first opposed it.
But that's no problem for Republicans. It's enough of a win for them that they're spending war money and denying House Democrats what they wanted in exchange. Deficit, shmeficit, the Dems who wanted to help actual Americans got beat.
So, why suspend the rules and make it harder than it has to be? There are probably a number of reasons. But one might be this: Republicans are happy to vote with a hundred or so Dems to get this war funding passed, even at the cost of a little hypocrisy on domestic spending. But they don't want to be seen "voting with Nancy Pelosi" -- i.e., with the Democratic leadership -- on a rule for the bill, even though they'd cheerfully vote for the bill later the same day. And between Republican game-playing and Democrats resistant to the cave-in, the rule might be defeated. Suspension does away with the need for a rule and allows Republicans to go right to supporting the war money (and being hypocritical on the domestic money), without first having to "vote with Pelosi."
Could the bill be defeated under suspension and the war funding stalled? Absolutely. Getting to 2/3 is never a given, and if the 162 Members who voted for the McGovern amendment demanding timelines for withdrawal from Afghanistan held out, we'd have to go back to the drawing board. But that's not looking likely.
What can you do about it? Well, there's still a little time to call your Representative before the vote, which could take place as soon as 2pm EDT. And if you want some red meat background for the call, check out Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Raul Grijalva on the issue.