Democrats Suffer Meltdown Over Socialism Vote — 8 Break Ranks

Eight House Democrats broke with leadership Tuesday and backed a Republican resolution condemning socialism and endorsing President Trump’s election-security bill. It passed 220-192.

Every Republican who voted supported it. Two Democrats voted present.

Rep. Jeff Crank of Colorado wrote the nonbinding measure. It condemns “socialism in all its forms” and calls for passage of the SAVE America Act, which would add new voter-ID rules.

Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries opposed it in advance and called it a “MAGA effort to rig the midterm elections.”

The eight yes votes were Don Davis of North Carolina, Jared Golden of Maine, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, Gabe Vasquez of New Mexico, Vicente Gonzalez and Henry Cuellar of Texas, and Kathy Castor and Darren Soto of Florida. Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania voted present.

Gonzalez did not hide his view. “I don’t agree with socialism and I don’t have a major problem with voter ID,” he told reporters. “Socialism. I don’t know. I’m from the 80s. Socialism is not a good word for us, right? And it just never worked. And I think that most Americans don’t agree with some of those proposals.”

Other moderates opposed the final text because of SAVE America. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey joined Hillary Scholten of Michigan, Jared Moskowitz of Florida, and Tom Suozzi of New York in seeking an amendment to strip that piece out. The Rules Committee kept it in.

“If you really look at it, it’s just the SAVE Act with a wrapper on it,” Gottheimer said. “They’re just running the SAVE Act again, which we’ve already — that’s asked and answered. We’ve been through this play. They’re not actually interested in getting people on the record on whether socialists are part of the Democratic Party.”

Republicans wanted that on-the-record vote anyway. Eight Democrats gave it to them.