Vasquez breaks Democratic ranks with defense bill vote

Though he acknowledged the bill contains “hateful amendments,” New Mexico’s first-term congressman broke ranks and voted in support of a defense bill that was widely rejected by members of his party.

U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez found himself voting opposite nearly all fellow Democrats in the House, including his New Mexico colleagues, by supporting the National Defense Authorization Act after a string of GOP-introduced amendments led Democrats to balk at the bill.

A member of the House Armed Services Committee, Vasquez said he worked for months to include significant pay raises and New Mexico-specific provisions that would help the state, and he wasn’t going to risk the bill not passing. The bill isn’t finalized as it still has to pass the Senate and a conference committee, where it can be changed, before going to the president, he said.

“New Mexicans have asked me to think critically and independently of my party, on every issue that I look at in Congress,” Vasquez said in an interview.

After passing through the Armed Services Committee with broad, bipartisan support, the bill went to the full house, where GOP lawmakers tacked on a series of amendments that blocked certain abortion services and diversity initiatives at the Pentagon, among other things, Vasquez said.

The final vote was 219-210, with four Democrats, including Vasquez, supporting the bill and four Republicans opposing it.

“It’s hard to get results in the minority as a freshman member in Congress, and this was an opportunity,” Vasquez said.

The bill authorizes $874.2 billion in the coming year for defense spending, which is in line with President Joe Biden’s budget request.

Vasquez said his work drafting the bill on the Armed Services Committee has been a major focus of his first seven months in Congress. He said the bill contained numerous things he wanted included, such as a 5.2% pay increase for service members and mandating standardized drinking water reports around military installations to test for harmful chemicals. There are also some New Mexico-specific provisions in the bill, such as an expanded child care pilot program at Holloman Air Force Base.

“New Mexico is really key to our national defense,” Vasquez said. “So making sure that we’re supporting and protecting those interests at places like Holloman and White Sands (Missile Range) and Sandia and Los Alamos (national laboratories) and Kirtland and Cannon (Air Force bases) is incredibly important.”

Democratic leadership in the House issued a joint statement that lambasted Republicans for trying to “hijack” a historically bipartisan vote.

Reps. Melanie Stansbury and Teresa Leger Fernández, New Mexico Democrats, voted against the House bill.

“It’s absolutely shocking and is also a direct threat to our service members, their families, their livelihoods and to our national security,” Stansbury said on MSNBC, referring to the amendments. “This is the latest battlefield in the culture wars with the GOP. It’s disgusting and shameful they are using a historically bipartisan bill to do it.”

The Republican add-ons did things like roll back diversity and inclusion efforts at the Pentagon, prohibit service members from being reimbursed for certain abortion services and block some care for transgender personnel, according to The Associated Press.

It’s not clear if any of those GOP amendments will make it into the final bill, which now goes to the Democrat-controlled Senate, where Democratic senators have vowed to make substantial changes.

Vasquez wrote a letter Thursday to the Senate majority and minority leaders and the chair and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services committee asking them to pass the bill without the “anti-choice and discriminatory provisions.”