Rep. Jen Kiggans, a minivan-driving mother and Navy veteran, won election last year in her suburban Virginia swing district after a fiercely competitive race that focused on her opposition to rights to the abortion
The issue remains a top priority for voters in her district, and appearing too extreme on it could leave her vulnerable when she faces re-election in 2024. But Ms. Kiggans was one of dozens of Republicans in competitive districts who voted in favor this week. Support adding a series of deeply partisan restrictions to the annual defense policy bill, including one that would reverse a Pentagon policy aimed at preserving access to abortion services for military personnel regardless of where they are stationed .
Democrats said the GOP provision was a step toward instituting more nationwide abortion bans, while Republicans argued it merely preserved a longstanding barrier against allowing federal funds to be used to pay for abortions
The vote put lawmakers like Ms. Kiggans, a prime target of Democrats whose seat is up for grabs in next year’s congressional elections, in a politically dangerous position. And it raised the question of whether, in scoring the short-term victory of keeping his party united behind the annual defense bill, which passed on a close-to-party-line vote Friday, Speaker Kevin McCarthy might have adopted a strategy he might ultimately have adopted. it cost his party a majority in the House.
Ms. Kiggans and other similarly situated Republicans said they had no problem supporting the abortion restriction or the bill itself, which emerged from the House loaded with other conservative policy dictates, including one that prohibits the military health care program from providing transgender health services and another that limited. diversity training for military personnel.
“Taxpayers should not have to pay for elective surgery,” Ms. Kiggans, who portrayed herself as a moderate focused on kitchen-table economic issues, said in an interview Friday, explaining her vote. “This was not an abortion bill; it was about the taxpayers who pay for the travel of the military for elective procedures.”
Still, the campaign arm of House Democrats wasted no time in attacking Ms. Kiggans and other vulnerable Republicans who had supported the bill, with even some Republican lawmakers admitting that accepting it was a bad image for a party that was trying to broaden its appeal.
“The reason we’re in the majority today is because of the swing districts and the reason we’re going to lose the majority is because of the swing districts,” said Representative Nancy Mace, R-South Carolina. “That’s been lost up here. We’re 10 days into August vacation, and what have we done for women, post-Roe? Zero.”
Ms. Mace, who represents a politically divided district, criticized the abortion amendment but ultimately voted for it because he said it was technically consistent with Defense Department policy. But he said he regretted being forced to vote.
“I’m not happy,” she said. “I wish we didn’t have to do this right now.”
The Republican proposal would reverse a Defense Department policy put in place after the Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to abortion last year, prompting a rush by some states to enact curbs and bans on the procedure . The policy reimburses travel costs for staff who must travel out of state to obtain an abortion or related services. The policy does not provide money for abortions.
Democrats pointed to the vote as a prime example of Republican votes that could ultimately cost them the House majority. Strategists in both parties have suggested that the Supreme Court’s abortion decision, and subsequent efforts by Democrats to highlight Republican opposition to abortion rights, weakened the GOP during last year’s election. which cost them the support of independent and suburban voters.
“For the swing districts they represent, they should be doing the opposite, but they’re not,” said Courtney Rice, communications director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “Their decision to put party politics over pocketbook issues will cost them the House in 2024.”
Many vulnerable House Republicans said they took comfort in the knowledge that amendments that focused on fueling battles over social issues would likely be pulled from the bill by the Democratic-controlled Senate and would not be in a final version of the bill of defense policy law. .
“It wouldn’t be the way I would run the place, but at the end of the day, as long as we pass the NDAA like we did and keep the really nasty poison pills, I think it solves the problem,” he said. Representative Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, refers to the defense bill by the initials of his full name. Mr. Gonzales, who voted in favor of the abortion amendment and others banning transgender health services and limiting diversity training for military personnel, voted against amendments that sought to cut funding for in Ukraine
Sarah Chamberlain, president of the Republican Main Street Partnership, an outside organization allied with the Congressional Republican Main Street Caucus, called the vote a “calculated risk” for many members who bet it wouldn’t hurt them politically.
“They made the decision that it was more important to them to get this bill out of the House than to fall on their swords on this one,” he said. “They would have preferred these amendments not to have existed, but I think they can defend their vote because they support the men and women of the military.”
Still, it’s not the first time vulnerable Republicans have caved to their party’s far right, even when it means taking votes that could turn out to be political liabilities down the road. Mr. McCarthy, who has worked overtime to appease the right wing whose support he needs to stay in power, most of whom represent safe GOP districts, has done relatively little to protect the more mainstream Republicans whose seats risk of having to vote hard. .
In April, they voted in favor of Mr. McCarthy to raise the debt ceiling for a year in exchange for spending cuts and policy changes, even as he eliminated programs that helped veterans and the elderly.
Last month, they voted in favor of a resolution that would repeal a Biden administration rule that tightened federal regulations on stabilizer straps for firearms that have been used in several mass shootings. House leaders introduced the bill to help end a week-long gridlock by far-right Republicans.
Still, the level of GOP support for the abortion amendment — only two Republicans, Reps. John Duarte of California and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, voted against it — came as a shock to Democrats.
“There are those across the aisle who realize this is bad,” said Rep. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, a former Navy helicopter pilot who is one of two female House Democrats to have served in the army Ms. Sherrill said she had heard from some Republican colleagues who told her privately: “‘This is a very bad idea, this is a mistake.’ Well, then why did everyone but two people vote for this very bad amendment?
Representative Chrissie Houlahan, D-Pennsylvania and a former Air Force officer, said she was “surprised at how few people voted against the amendment. I expected 15 Republicans to do the right thing.”
Some more mainstream Republicans tried to justify their votes by arguing that they weren’t voting against abortion or transgender health care, just against government funding for it.
“If you look at the polls, most Americans don’t think the federal government should pay for abortions,” said Rep. Stephanie Bice, R-Oklahoma and vice chair of the Main Street Caucus.
Representative Don Bacon, R-Nebraska, said he supported the provision banning military coverage of gender transition surgeries and hormone therapy because he believed, “If you want to do it, do it on your own.”
“I don’t think it should be the taxpayers’ responsibility,” Bacon added.
