Two House Democrats broke with their party again on Tuesday, voting with Republicans to advance debate on a Russia sanctions bill and a package rolling back EPA regulations.
Reps. Jared Golden of Maine and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington were the only Democrats to cross over.
It was the second time this month the same pair has done so; in early September they voted together to advance a procedural rule that five Republicans had tried to block. The procedural vote carried 214-211, reported the Daily Caller.
The sanctions measure would give President Trump new authority to impose tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil.
It passed the Senate in August with 86 votes, and is named for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, according to Maine Public.
Both Democrats framed their votes around Ukraine. “The stakes for Ukraine are too high to let this good bill die as a result of a procedural vote,” Golden said. Gluesenkamp Perez said she was “proud to represent one of the largest Ukrainian communities in America.”
Procedural votes on rules are normally party-line affairs, and failing one is a visible embarrassment for leadership.
Nine have failed under Speaker Mike Johnson, and Republicans’ narrow margin means a handful of defections on their own side can sink a rule — which is what gives two crossing Democrats outsized leverage.
Democratic leaders have not welcomed it. After the earlier vote, leadership called the defection a “serious breach of trust,” Maine Public reported. Democratic Whip Katherine Clark was blunter about the incentives involved: “We need team players. And team players get to sit on exclusive committees.”
Neither Golden nor Gluesenkamp Perez is a conventional member of the caucus.
Both hold seats in districts that have backed Republicans at the presidential level, and both have built records of breaking with their leadership. Golden has separately been pressing for an extension of the Northeast Lobstermen Protection Act.
The vote advanced debate rather than passing either measure, so neither the sanctions bill nor the EPA package has yet had a final vote on the House floor, and the substantive decisions still lie ahead.
With the House scheduled to leave for the districts at the end of this week and not return until November, the calendar is now the binding constraint on what either bill can achieve before the midterms.
