The House bill that sets Pentagon policies for the next year, which began as mundane and bipartisan, passed on Friday on a party-line vote. The bill received a 58-to-1 vote in committee, but radical Republicans offered dozens of amendments on such issues as abortion, book banning, bases named after Confederate generals, and so on. The vote of the full House was 219 to 210.
It’s highly likely that the final version of the National Defense Authorization Act will be stripped of these provisions. The Senate is already hard at work on its version, which will be approved by a very large bipartisan majority, and the House will probably have to accept that bill, which will then be signed by President Joe Biden. The House bill simply doesn’t have the votes in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Still, this episode does not bode well for the rest of the congressional agenda. It’s especially concerning for what it signals about the upcoming showdown over the annual spending bills and the possibility of a government shutdown in the fall.
