WASHINGTON — House Republicans and Democrats found themselves in a loud floor fight Thursday morning over an LGBT amendment Democrats wanted to include in the National Defense Authorization Act on Wednesday night.
The original amendment, proposed by Washington Democratic Rep. [crscore]Adam Smith[/crscore], would have removed a measure on religious liberty that opponents say would remove LGBT workplace protections for contractors.
The provision in the defense bill says that religious businesses, associations and institutions receiving federal contracts cannot be discriminated against on the basis of religion.
By Friday morning, New York Democratic Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, an openly gay member of Congress, proposed a similar amendment to the defense bill. Maloney’s amendment would have prohibited funds to go to any business contractor who did not comply with President Obama’s executive order banning federal contractors from discriminating against LGBT personnel.
“This is one of the ugliest episodes I’ve experienced in my three-plus years as a member of this House,” Maloney said when he proposed the amendment.
The amendment appeared to have enough votes to pass at first with 217 voting yea and 206 voting nay, but Republican leadership held the vote open and votes were switched and the amendment failed to pass 212-213.
“Shame! Shame! Shame!” some Democrats loudly chanted when the final numbers changed. Ultimately, 29 Republicans voted for Maloney’s amendment.
New York Republican Rep. [crscore]Peter King[/crscore] voted against it and told The Daily Caller, “The Democrats felt the vote was changed and they protested it. It was all legitimate on all sides. My objection is to the executive order. We shouldn’t be doing this type of thing by executive order.” He added, “If there is discrimination, we have legislation on the books to address it and if not we need more legislation not to do it by executive order.”
“Well, It’s unfortunate that some Republicans who wanted to vote for the LGBT protections weren’t allowed to by leadership and obviously got their arms twisted. It’s still unclear who exactly switched their vote, because those switches were not announced publicly on the House floor,” Democratic Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro told TheDC.