In a special holiday session between Christmas and New Year, the House of Representatives convened again to do two things, presenting a major issue to the GOP and causing a fracture within the party: scheduling two votes, one to override the veto of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), and another to increase the amount offered to Americans via stimulus checks in the stimulus bill from $600 to $2,000.
House votes to raise stimulus checks to $2,000
The bipartisan COVID-19 relief deal, passed by Congress last week and signed into law by President Trump Sunday, contained a provision to send stimulus checks worth $600 to all qualifying Americans. The amount was half of what was offered when the CARES Act was passed back in March, and throughout the summer, during party negotiations, the Progressive Caucus, a congressional caucus containing congresspeople like Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) representing the progressive movement, continually called for the amount offered in stimulus checks to be increased to $2,000 from the $600 being offered. Unfortunately, due to Republican opposition for fear of “increasing the budget deficit,” the measure never made it into the final bill.
However, shortly after Congress agreed on the measure, President Trump, who had largely sat out of bipartisan negotiations in Congress throughout the summer and fall, suddenly demanded that the amount offered in the checks be increased to $2,000, briefly causing concern as to whether or not the bill, which passed Congress by a veto-proof majority, would be signed into law in a timely fashion. Though Trump did eventually sign the bill, congressional Democrats, acting on the president’s messaging, pushed through a measure to increase the amount offered in the checks to $2,000.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) previously tried to hurry a vote through the House last week, but doing so required unanimous consent, and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) refused to support the measure, among other Republicans. The vote was then moved to Monday, where a two-thirds supermajority would be needed as the vote was taking place under a suspension of House rules.
In an extremely narrow vote, barely scraping past the needed two-thirds majority, the House voted 275 to 134, with 21 Republicans not voting, passing the bill increasing the amount offered in the stimulus checks from $600 to $2,000. All but two Democrats, along with 44 Republicans, voted to support the measure. Two independents, two Democrats, and 130 Republicans voted no. Interestingly, even though only 44 Republicans voted to support the measure, the 21 Republicans who didn’t vote likely also secretly support the act, as it would have only taken one or two more “no” votes to stop the bill from passing.
The bill now moves on to the GOP-controlled Senate, where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) will need to decide whether or not to honor the House and the President’s wishes by scheduling a vote for the bill.
House also votes to override the presidential veto of the NDAA
Separately, in a blow to President Trump, the House overwhelmingly voted to override the presidential veto of the NDAA. Even though the defense act, which passed for the last 60 years without fail, passed both houses of Congress with veto-proof majorities, President Trump chose to veto the bill, because it didn’t contain a provision repealing Section 230, a liability shield for tech and social media companies preventing them from being liable for what third parties do on their platforms.
General bipartisan consensus in Congress is that a provision repealing Section 230 is totally unrelated to the NDAA, which includes pay raises for soldiers, modernizations for equipment, requires more scrutiny before troops can be withdrawn from Afghanistan or Germany, requires all military bases named after Confederates to be renamed, and limits how much money Trump can sped on his border wall, among other things.
In an overwhelming 322 to 87 vote with 20 Republicans and one Democrat not voting, the House overrode the presidential veto of the NDAA. A two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress is required to override vetos. 212 Democrats, 109 Republicans, and one independent voted to override, while 20 Democrats, 66 Republicans, and one independent voted not to. This is a stunning rebuke to President Trump and the first time that a house of Congress has voted to override a veto from Trump.
Even though the minority leader in the House voted not to sustain a veto despite supporting the bill, and insisted House Republicans would support the president’s veto, 109 Republicans crossed the flanks and chose to override the veto on this crucial piece of legislation. In fact, many Republicans have been supportive of the veto override, such as Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who is a member of GOP leadership, and Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee.
Even though Senate Majority Leader McConnell has been supportive of the NDAA and is expected to schedule a vote on the floor for the override, it will require unanimous consent until this can be done as it will have to occur under a suspension of Senate rules. However, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders are expected to object, unless McConnell also schedules a vote for the $2,000 checks.
“Millions of families in America today are desperate, and the Senate has got to do its job by having a vote,” said Sanders regarding the checks.
Headache for Republicans and Georgia runoff elections
Because these votes have caused a rift in the GOP, members are now being forced to decide, with regard to the stimulus check increase, whether to side with the president in increasing the checks or GOP leadership in not, and with regard to the NDAA veto, the opposite.
For Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler (both R-Ga.), it is a real headache. No matter how they choose to vote in the Senate, they are sure to anger a section of their supporters. Should they vote no on the stimulus, it will certainly cause a backlash among their constituents and potentially give enough momentum to their Democratic challengers to win in the January 5 runoff. However, by doing so, it will mean breaking with GOP leadership. They will have to decide what is more important to them.