Respect for Marriage Act wins Senate cloture vote: Marriage equality will soon be codified!

The Unit­ed States Sen­ate today took a huge and his­toric step towards cod­i­fy­ing mar­riage equal­i­ty into fed­er­al law. On a bipar­ti­san vote of 62–37, the Sen­ate vot­ed to invoke clo­ture on the Respect for Mar­riage Act (H.R. 8404), which would send a pow­er­ful mes­sage to the Roberts/Alito Court that the exec­u­tive and leg­isla­tive branch­es of our fed­er­al gov­ern­ment do not want the Oberge­fell deci­sion over­turned, and final­ly repeal the “Defense of Mar­riage” Act.

“Love is love, and Amer­i­cans should have the right to mar­ry the per­son they love,” said Pres­i­dent Joe Biden in a state­ment released by the White House.

“Today’s bipar­ti­san vote brings the Unit­ed States one step clos­er to pro­tect­ing that right in law. The Respect for Mar­riage Act will ensure that LGBTQI+ cou­ples and inter­ra­cial cou­ples are respect­ed and pro­tect­ed equal­ly under fed­er­al law, and pro­vide more cer­tain­ty to these fam­i­lies since the Supreme Court’s deci­sion in Dobbs. I want to thank the Mem­bers of Con­gress whose lead­er­ship has sent a strong mes­sage that Repub­li­cans and Democ­rats can work togeth­er to secure the fun­da­men­tal right of Amer­i­cans to mar­ry the per­son they love. I urge Con­gress to quick­ly send this bill to my desk where I will prompt­ly sign it into law.”

The votes exist to pass the Respect for Mar­riage Act in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives at least until ear­ly Jan­u­ary, when Repub­li­cans could have a slight major­i­ty. (The out­come of a num­ber of U.S. House races remains uncer­tain over a week after Elec­tion Day.) It’s there­fore of para­mount impor­tance for Con­gress to get this bill passed so that it can get done before Kevin McCarthy’s cau­cus gains pow­er. Sen­ate Democ­rats need­ed at least ten votes from Repub­li­cans to break a fil­i­buster and invoke clo­ture. Amaz­ing­ly, they got twelve.

The twelve Repub­li­cans vot­ing yea were:

• Roy Blunt of Missouri
• Richard Burr of North Carolina
• Shelly Moore Capi­to of West Virginia
• Susan Collins of Maine
• Joni Ernst of Iowa
• Cyn­thia Lum­mis of Wyoming
• Lisa Murkows­ki of Alaska
• Rob Port­man of Ohio
• Mitt Rom­ney of Utah
• Dan Sul­li­van of Alaska
• Thom Tillis of North Carolina
• Todd Young of Indiana

Notably, Tillis, Port­man, and Burr are all retir­ing and so will not risk the wrath of the ultra MAGA cult for vot­ing yea. Lisa Murkows­ki is await­ing the results of the next round of ranked choice vot­ing in Alas­ka to learn her fate.

Every Demo­c­ra­t­ic and inde­pen­dent sen­a­tor vot­ed yea.

One Repub­li­can Sen­a­tor, Ben Sasse, missed the vote.

The roll call from the Pacif­ic North­west was as follows:

Vot­ing Yea to Cod­i­fy Mar­riage Equal­i­ty: Sen­a­tors Pat­ty Mur­ray and Maria Cantwell (WA), Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley (OR), Jon Tester (MT); Repub­li­can Sen­a­tors Lisa Murkows­ki and Dan Sul­li­van (AK)

Vot­ing Nay Against Mar­riage Equal­i­ty: Sen­a­tors Mike Crapo and Jim Risch (ID), Steve Daines (MT)

“The Supreme Court has proven time and time again that they will defy the will of the peo­ple with­out issue, and NextGen Amer­i­ca com­mends the work of the Sen­ate for tak­ing this huge step for­ward to defend­ing our most basic free­doms and cod­i­fy­ing same-sex mar­riage into law,” said NextGen Amer­i­ca Pres­i­dent Cristi­na Tzintzún Ramirez in a state­ment sent to NPI.

“Last Tues­day, young vot­ers turned out at his­toric lev­els to pro­pel Democ­rats in the Sen­ate to vic­to­ry, trust­ing in these lead­ers to build a bet­ter future and pro­tect our most basic civ­il lib­er­ties. And today, Sen­ate Democ­rats showed up for young vot­ers and their vision for the future,” Ramirez added.

“Young peo­ple in this coun­try are over­whelm­ing­ly pro­gres­sive and believe all Amer­i­cans should be able to love and mar­ry who they want.”

“Now we call on law­mak­ers in the House to advance the Respect for Mar­riage Act to Pres­i­dent Biden’s desk with­out delay and move us clos­er to achiev­ing the basic equal­i­ty we are fight­ing tire­less­ly for.”

NPI thanks the twelve Repub­li­can sen­a­tors list­ed above for vot­ing to pro­tect Amer­i­cans’ free­dom to mar­ry and pro­vid­ing the votes need­ed to invoke clo­ture in the Sen­ate. We con­grat­u­late Democ­rats for deliv­er­ing yet again on an impor­tant pri­or­i­ty for the Amer­i­can peo­ple. With the unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic fil­i­buster no longer an imped­i­ment to H.R. 8404, it’s all down­hill to Pres­i­dent Joe Biden’s desk, and we can expect a joy­ful bill sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny in the next few weeks. Hurrah!

This post will be updat­ed with addi­tion­al reac­tion from our region’s con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion as we receive it.