Senate Democrats blocked the advancement of a critical defense spending package, known as the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), on July 14 as the two major parties remain divided over its provisions.
The tally was 50 to 46 with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) switching his vote from “yes” to “no” so that he can again bring up the motion to invoke cloture, which requires 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.
Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Jim Justice (R-W.Va.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.), and Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) missed the vote.
The Senate Armed Services Committee advanced the bill on June 11 on a bipartisan 18–9 vote.
However, Republicans and Democrats failed to agree on top-line defense and non-defense spending levels, creating tension between the two sides.
Democrats have said that the resumption of the war in Iran was a factor behind their opposition to the motion.
“Now the White House has formally notified Congress that hostilities have resumed, that American strikes are under way again and our forces remain positioned for more,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the floor before the vote.
“Yet Republicans want the Senate to take up the NDAA, the defense bill, as though none of this is happening.”
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said the vote to block the defense bill from coming up for debate was “unprecedented.”
“It’s unprecedented not to pass the motion to proceed on the NDAA, and it reflects a decision and a mindset on the part of Sen. Schumer not to cooperate at all because so much of this has been done on a bipartisan basis,” he said.
“It really is a new low.”
The $1.15 trillion legislation would allocate almost $1.1 trillion to the Department of War, more than $41.14 billion to the Energy Department to manage the nation’s nuclear arsenal, and $11 billion to other defense-related activities.
The bill authorizes a 3.6 percent pay raise for all military members.
It would also allocate funds to educational agencies affected by the enrollment of military and Department of War civilian dependents.
Schumer on Monday criticized Republicans in a “Dear Colleague” letter for “lopsided spending bills that supersize the president’s war budget, leave families behind, and let corruption go unchecked.”
“Now they are pushing to advance the annual NDAA while refusing to negotiate on the president’s bloated, partisan topline budget request that would dump billions more into the defense industry while long-overdue investments in American communities wait,” he wrote.
The Epoch Times has reached out to the White House and Thune’s office for comment on the vote and Schumer’s letter.
