House Democrats passed a major defense policy bill Friday loaded with liberal provisions that sets up a clash with both Democrats and Republicans in the Senate.
The $733 billion National Defense Authorization Act on Friday was amended with language that put significant checks on the executive branch and includes liberal language doomed for rejection across the Capitol, where lawmakers in the upper chamber have passed their own measure with bipartisan support.
No House Republicans voted for the bill.
“I predict the bill the bill that ends up on the president’s desk is going to look a lot more like the Senate bill than the bill that came out of the House,” House Minority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana said Friday.
The House bill accomplishes a long-held goal of the liberal House wing of blocking new use of military force by the president without congressional approval.
Lawmakers passed an amendment by a vote of 242 to 180 that prevents the president from using a 2001 war authorizing measure to conduct future military action abroad.
They passed an additional amendment prohibiting President Trump from launching military strikes against Iran without a green light from Congress.
“We can’t let Trump and his warmongering Cabinet drag us into another costly and destabilizing war in the Middle East,” Rep. Barbara Lee of California, who sponsored the war authorizing amendment, said.
Lawmakers also approved amendments banning Trump from selling arms to Saudi Arabia and ending U.S involvement in the Saudi-led war in Yemen.
The House bill also includes new environmental language aimed at mitigating climate change and it reverses Trump’s ban on transgender individuals serving in the military.
The liberal provisions help sell the measure to the House liberal base, which had been balking at high price tag.
At least some of those liberal add-ons are likely to be discarded, however, when the bill goes to conference with the Senate.
In an interview, Senate Majority Whip John Thune of South Dakota said many of the provisions in the House bill can’t pass the Senate.
Not only is the Senate defense bill more expensive with a price tag of $750 million, it includes none of the liberal add-ons in the House bill.
And while House Democrats were able to pass the measure with just eight party defections, the Senate approved its version with an overwhelming majority, 86-8.
There will be pressure on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York to fight for the liberal provisions when the House and Senate bills go to conference.
Many House Democrats are angry with Schumer because he didn’t fight for liberal priorities in a $4.6 billion border funding bill.
So far, Schumer is only pledging to fight for the provision requiring congressional approval for military action against Iran.
“This same amendment was supported by a bipartisan majority in the Senate two weeks ago,” Schumer said. “We will fight to include this provision in the NDAA conference report.”
