The National Defense Authorization Act passed the House on Wednesday afternoon, a win for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) after he had to endure another round of drama from members of his own conference.
The NDAA passed 312 to 112, with 18 Republicans voting against and 115 Democrats voting for the bill. The legislation, which authorizes funding levels and defense policy for the Pentagon, is one of the few bills that Congress must pass each year.
It is typically bipartisan, but Republicans found themselves once again in the middle of an infighting mess while trying to pass the rule, a procedural measure, on the NDAA.
The vote for the rule opened around 2 p.m., but it didn’t close until 3:30 p.m. because five conservative Republicans and a handful of centrist holdouts threatened to tank the procedural measure. This pushed the final passage vote from 4 p.m. to 4:45 p.m.
Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Tim Burchett (R-TN), Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), and Thomas Massie (R-KY) were the consistent “no” votes on the rule for over an hour.
Johnson could only afford to lose three Republican votes due to his razor-thin margin, so leadership had to bounce back and forth between the five to try to sway them.
At one point, an unlikely quad — House GOP Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain (R-MI), Johnson, Greene, and Massie — were sitting in a row together talking. McClain mostly chatted with Greene while Johnson spoke to Massie, though Greene and the speaker had a brief conversation before Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) joined the conversation.
On the other side of the room, a handful of centrist Republicans did not cast a vote, forcing leadership to leave the conservative holdouts and join their group to convince them to vote for the rule. Among the centrist holdouts included Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Nick LaLota (R-NY), Mike Lawler (R-NY), and Rob Bresnahan (R-PA).
Eventually, all the centrists voted for the rule, and four of the five conservative holdouts flipped their votes from “no” to “yes.” Massie remained the sole “no” vote on the rule.
Greene said in a post to X that she flipped to a “yes” because Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) promised that her bill, the Protect Children’s Innocence Act, would get a vote next week on Wednesday. She said the legislation is “one of President Donald Trump’s key campaign promises and executive orders,” which comes as she and the president are at war over her outspokenness on the issues within the Republican Party.
Boebert, Burchett, and Luna told CNN that they spoke with Secretary of State Marco Rubio to ensure that money for certain non-governmental organizations will not go to the Taliban, an issue Burchett, in particular, has been pushing. They also said that they got assurances on moving forward with Luna’s bill banning congressional stock trading and a concession from the speaker on a crypto bill to prevent the creation of Central Bank Digital Currency.
A failed rule vote would have been a significant blow to Johnson’s leadership. Though historically a rare occurrence, Johnson has had six rule votes fail under his leadership since taking up the gavel from ousted Speaker and former Rep. Kevin McCarthy. The last rule failure was on July 15, when 13 conservatives tanked a rule vote for a slate of cryptocurrency bills and an appropriations bill over problems with some of the crypto legislation.
Leadership has frequently blamed the razor-thin majority and the diversity of ideologies among their conservative colleagues as the reason for the drama, but Johnson himself has repeatedly said he wished he could have a “normal Congress.”
The NDAA now goes to the Senate for final passage. The legislation is likely to come up for a vote next week.
