2 of 46 Democrats Who Voted Against Debt Ceiling Bill Explain Why

Samantha Aschieris /

The House voted Wednesday evening to lift the nation’s debt ceiling and begin to curb government spending with the votes of both Democrats and Republicans.

The vote to pass the debt ceiling bill was 314-117, with some of the House’s most conservative Republicans opposing it as not going far enough to establish fiscal discipline.

A total of 149 Republicans and 165 Democrats voted for the legislation, while 71 Republicans and 46 Democrats voted against it. Four House members didn’t vote. 

The following are the 46 Democrats who voted against the legislation:

  1. Nanette Diaz Barragán (Calif.)
  2. Suzanne Bonamici (Ore.)
  3. Jamaal Bowman (N.Y.)
  4. Cori Bush (Mo.)
  5. Greg Casar (Texas)
  6. Joaquin Castro (Texas)
  7. Judy Chu (Calif.)
  8. Yvette Clarke (N.Y.)
  9. Gerald Connolly (Va.)
  10. Jasmine Crockett (Texas)
  11. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.)
  12. Mark DeSaulnier (Calif.)
  13. Adriano Espaillat (N.Y.)
  14. Jesús “Chuy” García (Ill.)
  15. Sylvia Garcia (Texas)
  16. Daniel Goldman (N.Y.)
  17. Jimmy Gomez (Calif.)
  18. Raúl Grijalva (Ariz.)
  19. Jahana Hayes (Conn.)
  20. Val Hoyle (Ore.)
  21. Jared Huffman (Calif.)
  22. Pramila Jayapal (Wash.)
  23. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (Calif.)
  24. Ro Khanna (Calif.)
  25. John Larson (Conn.)
  26. Barbara Lee (Calif.)
  27. Summer Lee (Pa.)
  28. James McGovern (Mass.)
  29. Grace Meng (N.Y.)
  30. Gwen Moore (Wis.)
  31. Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.)
  32. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.)
  33. Mark Pocan (Wis.)
  34. Katie Porter (Calif.)
  35. Ayanna Pressley (Mass.)
  36. Delia Ramirez (Ill.)
  37. Janice Schakowsky (Ill.)
  38. Bobby Scott (Va.)
  39. Melanie Stansbury (N.M.)
  40. Rashida Tlaib (Mich.)
  41. Norma Torres (Calif.)
  42. Ritchie Torres (N.Y.)
  43. Juan Vargas (Calif.)
  44. Nydia Velázquez (N.Y.)
  45. Nikema Williams (Ga.)
  46. Frederica Wilson (Fla.)

“While I commend the president’s work and agree that this deal must pass to protect our economy from Republican ‘hostage’ takers, I voted no on the bill after it received the votes needed to pass,” Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said in a statement after the bill’s passage. “I could not support a deal that included harmful spending cuts, bad permitting-reform policies that undermine environmental justice, or work requirements for social safety net programs.”

“The bill revokes billions for COVID relief, snatches food assistance from families, & cements the Mountain Valley Pipeline to poison communities for decades to come,” Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., said in a Twitter thread ahead of the vote. “Yet it does nothing to rein in defense spending and allows handouts for wealthy tax cheats and corporations.”

“This bill will make the poor poorer, hungrier, and sicker, while further enriching the rich through the prison, fossil fuel, and military industrial complex,” Bowman added.

Among the 71 Republicans who voted against the legislation were Reps. Chip Roy of Texas, Nancy Mace of South Carolina, Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, Bob Good of Virginia, Eli Crane of Arizona, and Andrew Clyde of Georgia.

President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., reached the deal Saturday. Now, the Senate takes up the legislation.

The bill as passed would suspend the current debt limit of $31.4 trillion until Jan. 1, 2025, about two months after the presidential election of Nov. 5, 2024, when all 435 House seats and 33 of the 100 Senate seats also will be on ballots across the nation.

The 99-page bill, called the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, would rescind roughly $30 billion of unspent COVID-19 relief funds; completely fund veterans medical care as proposed in the president’s budget for fiscal year 2024, and end the COVID-19-era pause in repaying student loans in late August, The Associated Press reported.

The bill emerging from the Biden-McCarthy deal also aims to keep nondefense spending “relatively flat” in fiscal 2024; increases nondefense spending by just 1% in fiscal 2025; and accelerates completion of a natural gas pipeline in West Virginia called the Mountain Valley Pipeline, CNN reported. 

Here’s what one House Republican tweeted about the deal Wednesday night:

Heritage Action for America, the grassroots advocacy arm of The Heritage Foundation, opposed the new legislation resulting from the Biden-McCarthy deal. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

“This deal does not meet the moment, and it does not address the root problems that have led to nearly $32 trillion in national debt,” Heritage Action said in a written statement. “As members of Congress continue the fight to rein in Washington’s spending addiction and prevent the country’s fiscal ruin, we remain committed to finding solutions to once and for all bend the spending curve down.”

Following the House vote Wednesday evening, the legislation heads to the Democrat-controlled Senate, where Biden has asked senators to vote yes.

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