A new defense authorization bill that reflected both House and Senate bill language from earlier in the year passed the House of Representatives Thursday evening in an overwhelming 350-69 vote.
The bill now goes to the Senate, where it faces much tougher opposition due to the mechanism in which it will be passed, not the content of the bill.
House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said on his way out of the House chamber that, despite the long process of getting defense authorization passed for a second time, he is “just happy it passed.” He said he believes it is a good bill that is important for troops, and now all that’s left to do is wait for the Senate to act next week.
Earlier in the afternoon, Smith, HASC Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) and several subcommittee chairmen and ranking members took to the House floor for a 40-minute debate on the bill before the vote, which was held at 6:30 p.m.
Unlike tense discussions regarding the bipartisan budget deal that was also unveiled this week, the HASC leaders each began their one- or two-minute statements by avowing “strong support” for the bill and urging their colleagues to vote for it.
None raised a criticism of the bill during the 40 minutes of “debate”; rather, they pointed to the bill’s prioritization of cyber operations and special operations forces, oversight of major acquisition programs, support of submarine and aviation programs, and use of multi-year contracts to save money. They thanked their fellow members and staffs on both sides of the aisle, and strategic forces subcommittee chairman Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) even joked to his ranking member, Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), that they might bring their consensus-building to a new level next year –“maybe we’ll even see eye to eye on SEC football, but I doubt it.”
The collegial debate came after a more heated debate related to the budget deal. Since the two-year budget plan was announced Tuesday evening, House Republicans have tried to fight off criticism from outside groups and hard-right members who say the bill is a bad deal for keeping spending down. House Democrats have lamented that the deal did not include an extension of unemployment insurance, set to expire Dec. 28. Even during the debate Thursday afternoon regarding the rules for debating the budget deal, members wound up veering off topic to fight over the Affordable Care Act.
With the bill now passed in the House, it faces an uphill battle in the Senate. Though the Senate Armed Services Committee passed a bill in a 23-3 vote in June, that bill did not come before the full Senate until last month, and several Republican Senators refused to let the legislation move forward because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) would only allow a select few amendments. The bill stalled right as lawmakers adjourned for Thanksgiving, leaving them just one week before the end of the year when the House and Senate would both be in session – not enough time to pass the bill in the Senate, go to a conference committee and then re-pass the bill in both chambers.
The HASC and SASC staffs already had spent weeks in talks about the differences between their bills, and on Monday committee leaders said they had a new bill that meshed the two versions together, along with about 80 amendments that had been filed in the Senate but not debated. McKeon repeatedly stressed this week that Senate amendments were included in the bill to appease his Republican counterparts in the Senate – though he does not appear to have changed some minds. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) still plans to “use all procedural tools at his disposal to force a full and open debate in the Senate,” his spokesman, John Hart, said Wednesday.
Asked on Thursday what he was willing to do to ensure the defense bill passes before next Friday, when the Senate adjourns for the year, Reid simply reiterated that he would not allow amendments to the bill.