When lawmakers return to Washington from their two-week Easter break, leaders in both chambers will face tricky political dilemmas.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has to figure out how to proceed with the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, while House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., needs to decide how to handle Ukraine aid. And Johnson must do it while facing a narrowing majority and a motion to remove him from the speaker’s chair.

Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., filed the motion to vacate after the House passed the massive spending bill that ensured the government would stay fully open through the rest of the fiscal year. She did not make her motion privileged, so there is not a deadline for when the House must take it up.

“But that means that it's also still hanging over every single negotiating position for the speaker,” sCasey Burgat, assistant professor at George Washington University, told Spectrum News.

Burgat predicted that Johnson's decision on whether to move forward with additional assistance for Ukraine will create a test for the speaker. 

“That's kind of the Rubicon for a lot of these Republican members to say, 'Hey, we don't want to spend any more money on Ukraine when we have a lot of our own problems here at home,'" he said.

Burgat does think there are enough votes in the House to pass the Seante foreign aid bill that includes funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. But many, or even most, of the votes would come from Democrats.

That’s exactly what Greene and other critics have complained about.

“So if he crosses the line again, for enough members within his conference saying, 'Don't go through with this type of bipartisan legislation,’ that could spell the end of Speaker Mike Johnson's tenure,” said Burgat.  

The situation gives every Republican member leverage over the speaker because he can only afford to lose one GOP vote on any given bill. Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado resigned last month, further narrowing the party’s majority, and Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher is headed out the door as well this month.  

Narrow margins are familiar territory for Schumer, but that’s not the issue as his chamber confronts the Mayorkas impeachment.

It takes a two-thirds majority to convict, which means Democrats can easily stop that from happening. But Burgat explained that Schumer does have options to stop the matter without even holding a trial, including holding a vote to dismiss or referring the matter to committee.

“It is up to the members within the Democratic Senate to decide how they want to process this. And they know full well that the precedent here really matters. Impeachment is likely to be an increased frequency tool within our system,” Burgat explained, pointing out that former President Donald Trump was impeached twice.  

However, there’s a political downside to making the Mayorkas impeachment go away quickly. House Republicans brought the charges over his handling of the southwest border. And while Democrats and some historians argue that impeachment should only be about corruption or criminality and not a policy dispute like this one, immigration is a top concern for many voters.

“If they just dismiss it, or table it, then that's a huge indication that they're trying to just turn the page on something that is obviously really important to a lot of American citizens, whether they live on the border or not,” Burgat said.

Immigration legislation remains stalled in the Senate after Republicans blocked a measure that had been negotiated by one of their members. Burgat predicted that as the November election ticks closer, the appetite for bipartisan victories on anything will diminish.

One exception might be disaster relief following the bridge collapse in Baltimore. Members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus are starting to make demands on what they’ll want in exchange. But Burgat pointed out past congresses have been able to overcome similar disputes to eventually finance recovery efforts.

"I suspect in the end that the appropriations the dollars will come through," he said.