Thirty-three House Democrats voted with Republicans Thursday, handing party leadership a stinging defeat.
The bill passed 237 to 169, with 33 Democrats crossing the aisle to join nearly all Republicans in supporting the measure. Only two Republicans voted no, Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Warren Davidson of Ohio.
The legislation targets federal funding for colleges that participate in non-expressive commercial boycotts of Israel. Universities that receive federal dollars would also be required to confirm that students are not being unreasonably prevented from studying abroad in Israel.
As originally reported, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York led Democratic opposition to the bill, joining 167 colleagues who voted against it.
The vote exposed a sharp divide within the Democratic caucus. Leadership lined up firmly against the measure, but more than three dozen members of their own party rejected that position and sided with the Republican majority.
The bill’s passage marks the latest flashpoint in an ongoing internal Democratic struggle over how to handle legislation related to Israel, particularly in the aftermath of rising tensions over campus protests and university policies. The issue has proven politically difficult for Democratic leaders trying to hold a fractured coalition together.
Jeffries and top Democrats had opposed the measure, but their ability to keep the caucus unified fell short when a significant portion of their members chose to vote with the GOP. That kind of defection, 33 votes, is not a small crack. It is a visible fracture in leadership’s authority on one of the most politically charged issues of the current Congress.
The two Republican no votes from Massie and Davidson stood out as rare breaks from their party’s near-unanimous support for the bill, underscoring just how broadly the measure drew backing across the Republican conference.