McMorris Rodgers, Herrera Beutler vote against marriage equality in U.S. House

In a bipar­ti­san 267–157 vote, the U.S. House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Tues­day approved leg­is­la­tion that would cod­i­fy same-sex mar­riage into fed­er­al law as well as repeal the 1996 Defense of Mar­riage Act.

The leg­is­la­tion faces an uncer­tain future in the Sen­ate, where Repub­li­cans have already blocked a bill that would pro­hib­it states from block­ing women who want to trav­el across state lines to secure an abortion.

It needs votes from ten Repub­li­can senators.

All 220 Democ­rats and 47 Repub­li­cans in the House vot­ed to cod­i­fy mar­riage equal­i­ty. One Repub­li­can from Wash­ing­ton, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Dan New­house, joined the state’s sev­en House Democ­rats in vot­ing yea. So did two oth­er North­west Repub­li­cans, Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Mike Simp­son, R‑Idaho, and Cliff Bentz, R‑Oregon.

Two Repub­li­cans in the Wash­ing­ton del­e­ga­tion, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers from East­ern Wash­ing­ton and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jaime Her­rera Beut­ler from South­west Wash­ing­ton, vot­ed nay.

Oth­er pro-mar­riage equal­i­ty votes from con­ser­v­a­tive West­ern states includ­ed Rep. Liz Cheney, R‑Wyoming, and a trio of Utah Repub­li­cans, Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Burgess Owens, Blake Moore and John Curtis.

The vote came on a day when McMor­ris Rodgers sent out a bliz­zard of tweets denounc­ing Democ­rats for their sup­port of abor­tion rights.

Appar­ent­ly see­ing no irony in her vote against mar­riage equal­i­ty, Rodgers tweet­ed: “Every sin­gle per­son – born and unborn – has human rights. It’s self-evi­dent and for Amer­i­ca to be a more per­fect union, our laws must reflect that.”

The House leg­is­la­tion came in response to the 6–3 U.S. Supreme Court deci­sion that over­turned the 1973 Roe v. Wade deci­sion and took away Amer­i­cans’ right to an abor­tion, which is already endan­ger­ing the lives of women across the country.

Clarence Thomas, nar­row­ly con­firmed in the 1990s dur­ing the first Bush pres­i­den­cy, sug­gest­ed in a con­cur­ring opin­ion that the Court revis­it Oberge­fell vs. Hodges, the 2015 rul­ing that made same sex mar­riage a con­sti­tu­tion­al right.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Adam Schiff, D‑California, chair of the House Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee, report­ed in a Tweet: “157 Repub­li­cans just vot­ed against cod­i­fy­ing mar­riage equal­i­ty for LGBTQ+ and inter­ra­cial cou­ples. Repub­li­cans’ back­ward and extreme agen­da can­not be our future.”

By con­trast, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jim Jor­dan, R‑Ohio, who would chair the House Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee if Repub­li­cans recap­ture the House, described the vote as “a cha­rade” and “polit­i­cal mes­sag­ing” and an “attempt to intim­i­date the Unit­ed States Supreme Court.”

In pass­ing the Respect for Mar­riage Act, House Repub­li­cans were undo­ing a quar­ter-cen­tu­ry-old embarrassment.

The 1996 Defense of Mar­riage Act, signed into law by Pres­i­dent Clin­ton, defined mar­riage as “only a legal union between one man and one woman as hus­band and wife.” Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Mur­ray, D‑Washington, ini­tial­ly vot­ed for DOMA, but lat­er became one of the first Democ­rats to call for its repeal.

The House vote gave a look into 2022 elec­tion maneu­vers by the Wash­ing­ton delegation’s three Repub­li­cans. New­house and Her­rera Beut­ler were among ten House Repub­li­cans who vot­ed to impeach Pres­i­dent Trump after then Jan­u­ary 6th, 2021, insur­rec­tion at the U.S. Capitol.

Since then, until Tuesday’s mar­riage vote, New­house has most­ly been a down-the-line, par­ty-line Repub­li­can, decry­ing the Biden admin­is­tra­tion and par­rot­ing par­ty talk­ing points. Indeed, on Tues­day he proud­ly announced: “I was offi­cial­ly endorsed by the NRA (Nation­al Rifle Asso­ci­a­tion) last week. You can count on me to uphold our con­sti­tu­tion­al rights to keep and bear arms.”

New­house faces a trio of pro-Trump Repub­li­cans. One of them, 2020 Repub­li­can guber­na­to­r­i­al nom­i­nee Loren Culp, has Trump’s endorsement.

Her­rera Beut­ler is also fac­ing a chal­lenge for her impeach­ment vote, notably from Trump-backed ex-Navy SEAL Joe Kent.

She has court­ed Demo­c­ra­t­ic votes in the August 2nd Top Two elec­tion, notably using efforts to low­er the cost of pre­scrip­tion drugs.

The vote against mar­riage equal­i­ty won’t help efforts to broad­en her base.

McMor­ris Rodgers is in pur­suit of one goal where she needs sup­port of the Repub­li­can right: She wants to chair the pow­er­ful House Ener­gy and Com­merce Com­mit­tee if Repub­li­cans regain con­trol of Con­gress’ low­er chamber.