The House passed a more than $1 trillion annual defense bill on Wednesday, moving the unusually contentious measure forward after it earlier stalled in both chambers.
The bill, known as the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), passed by a 216-212 vote. The House mostly voted along party lines, with Democrats overwhelmingly voting against the measure, citing their objections to President Donald Trump’s war in Iran.
“As we support anything in the defense area, we are de facto supporting this war with no end in sight,” Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said on Wednesday.
The legislation will now need to win approval in the Senate, where it could face a difficult path. Last week, Democrats in the upper chamber blocked the Senate version of the measure for the same reason the majority of their colleagues in the House voted against the bill on Wednesday..
And the House rule that advanced the bill to consideration on the floor of the lower chamber also included language to attach it to a contentious piece of voting legislation before it is sent to the Senate. That measure, the SAVE America Act, would impose stricter ID requirements for voters nationwide, among other provisions. Trump has aggressively pushed for the passage of the SAVE America Act ahead of the pivotal fall midterms, stating that he will not sign any other legislation until it is sent to his desk. House Republicans passed the measure in February, but it has stalled in the Senate, where Republican leaders have said they do not have the votes to pass it.
The NDAA itself would allocate more than $1 trillion to the Department of Defense (DoD), as well as roughly $40 billion to the Department of Energy to oversee the U.S.’s nuclear arsenal and more than $10 billion for other matters related to the military. The package also contains a provision that stipulates that service members will receive a pay raise.
Earlier this year, the President proposed increasing DoD spending to $1.5 trillion—an increase of about $600 billion from last year.
In previous years, Congress has generally approved the annual defense bill with widespread support across the political aisle. But this year, the measure has become snarled in tensions over defense spending levels and the SAVE America Act.
On June 30, several House Republicans stalled progress on the NDAA and other legislative priorities in an effort to push for stronger action on the SAVE America Act. The standstill stemmed, in part, from the House rule that would have attached the restrictive voter ID legislation with the NDAA after it passed the lower chamber; one GOP lawmaker called the rule a "procedural head fake,” arguing that the Senate could detach the SAVE America Act from the defense bill. The bloc of House Republicans who rebelled against the move called on the party to take more radical steps to pass Trump’s restrictive voter ID law.
Senate Democrats, meanwhile, expressed their frustrations with the ongoing war in the Middle East by preventing the NDAA from moving forward.
On July 14, the measure failed to advance in the upper chamber in a vote of 50-46—a result that fell short of the 60-vote threshold required for it to proceed to the Senate floor. Lawmakers voted largely along party lines.
“The NDAA cannot become a permission slip for that recklessness that we see occurring in Iran,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said before casting his vote. “Donald Trump does not get to drag the American people deeper into a war he cannot explain and does not know how to end—and then demand that Congress look the other way.”
The war, which started when the U.S. and Israel launched military strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, is now in its fifth month and has led to the deaths of 17 American service members. The U.S. and Iran agreed to a memorandum of understanding in June that provided the framework for negotiating a final peace deal. But amid conflict over the key Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. resumed strikes against Iran earlier this month, with Trump declaring the tenuous cease-fire under the memorandum “over.”
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