Omar, Emmer Vote To Uphold Trump’s Veto Of Annual Defense Authorization Bill

the Minnesota Reformer

By Laura Olson

December 29, 2020

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House of Representatives voted Monday evening to override President Donald Trump’s veto of a $740 billion defense spending bill, setting up the first veto override of Trump’s tenure.

Following Monday’s 322-87 vote, the bill heads back to the Senate, which is slated to return to session Tuesday. Overriding a presidential veto requires a two-thirds veto in each chamber.

Minnesota’s delegation crossed party lines on the vote with Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar voting with Republican Tom Emmer to uphold Trump’s veto while Republican Rep. Pete Stauber voted with the rest of the state’s Democrats to overturn the president’s veto. Republican Rep. Jim Hagedorn did not vote as he was having surgery on Monday to remove a cancerous kidney.

Omar was the only member of the state’s delegation to vote against the bill when it passed earlier this month, issuing a statement at the time saying: “It is unconscionable to pass a Pentagon budget that continues to fund unnecessary projects and endless wars during a time of widespread suffering across our country. Thousands of Minnesotans are struggling to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. We should be investing our resources here at home — not increasing our already exorbitant Pentagon budget.”

The National Defense Authorization Act, a wide-ranging annual measure that includes pay raises for soldiers and defense modernization programs, initially passed both chambers of Congress with overwhelming, veto-proof majorities.

But Trump had signaled that he would veto the bill for several reasons, including that it did not repeal what’s known as Section 230, which shields internet and social-media companies from liability for content posted on their websites. He also opposed a provision to rename military installations named for Confederate generals.

Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said Monday that Trump vetoed the measure “because of something that isn’t in the bill and was never going to be in the bill, something totally unrelated to national security and something that we were not going to do in any event.”

Monday’s override vote in the Democratic-controlled House was widely bipartisan and only slightly narrower than the initial 335-to-78 vote. Some GOP lawmakers who initially supported the defense bill, including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), did not support the override, though 109 Republicans voted with Democrats to approve it.

“I continue to support this bill, as more than 80 percent of the House did just 20 days ago,” said Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee. “It’s the exact same bill. Not a comma has changed.”

Thornberry added that Trump “exercised his constitutional prerogative” in vetoing the measure, but urged lawmakers to “put the best interests of the country first.”

The override attempt now heads to the Republican-controlled Senate, which passed the bill initially on a 84-13 vote.

U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, tweeted after Trump’s veto that the defense bill should become law, and that another measure can be used to address liability concerns related to Section 230.

“The NDAA has become law every year for 59 years straight because it’s absolutely vital to our national security and our troops,” Inhofe wrote. “This year must not be an exception. Our men and women who volunteer to wear the uniform shouldn’t be denied what they need — ever.”

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