The House floor remained effectively shut down Tuesday after more than a dozen House conservatives continued their blockade in protest of the stalled SAVE America Act.
The group of holdouts, including Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., blocked a procedural vote, effectively freezing legislative business for the foreseeable future, after forcing GOP leaders to punt several votes last week.
The hardball tactics have forced the chamber into legislative paralysis as House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., races to advance several legislative priorities before the July 4 recess.
Lawmakers voted 198-224 against advancing a spate of legislative items — including a must-pass defense bill that will be paired with the SAVE America Act — with 14 Republicans voting “no.”
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The GOP holdouts included Luna and Reps. Max Miller, R-Ohio, Eric Burlison, R-Mo., Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., Andy Harris, R-Md., Randy Fine, R-Fla., Chip Roy and Keith Self, R-Texas, Eli Crane, R-Ariz., Victoria Spartz, R-Ind, Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Lauren Boebert, R-Colo.
Meanwhile, Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, likely voted “no” over an unrelated objection to the NDAA and House Majority Leader Steve Scaclise switched his vote to allow lawmakers to reconsider it again.
With such slim margins, Johnson could afford to lose just a handful of defections.
The conservative rebels continued their floor blockade in apparent defiance of President Donald Trump, who urged the cohort to stop “grandstanding” in a Truth Social post last week. Johnson also called their hardball tactics “self-defeating” for Republicans’ agenda.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Johnson told reporters Monday. “We have to move forward with legislation and that’s what I’ll be telling them all.”
He was seen having a tense conversation with Luna and several holdouts shortly before the failed vote.
In a likely attempt to appease conservative hardliners, Johnson used a rare procedural maneuver this week to revive the Trump-backed election measure, which has sat in limbo in the Senate chamber for months amid widespread opposition from Democrats.
GOP leaders proposed merging the SAVE America Act with an annual defense policy bill, known as the National Defense Authorization Act, when sending the legislation over to the Senate.
The House already passed that version of the SAVE America Act, but Johnson argued the upper chamber would be more likely to pass the measure if paired with a traditionally bipartisan bill.
“Let’s just have the full bill that’s still sitting there and has been transmitted to the Senate, let’s send it again, but put it as part of something that we hope and believe will be a bipartisan vote in both chambers, and that Democrats in the Senate will understand,” Johnson said during a leadership press conference on Tuesday.
The GOP holdouts have repeatedly demanded that leadership attempt to jam the upper chamber with the election measure as Trump insists it’s his top legislative priority. They largely withheld their support for Johnson’s proposal prior to the vote, arguing it would not force Senate action on the SAVE America Act.
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Luna said she wanted the SAVE America Act to be attached to the NDAA as an amendment or have a vote on an amendment to attach voter identification proof of citizenship requirements to the defense policy bill.
“IF IT IS NOT DONE THIS WAY, IT WILL EASILY BE TAKEN OUT,” Luna wrote on social media shortly before the vote.
Though both Trump and Johnson sharply criticized the floor blockade, Luna disputed that her approach was derailing Republicans’ agenda.
“To, you know, say that we’re holding up the process. This is legislating,” the Florida lawmaker told reporters Monday, standing next to Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., who has also joined the SAVE protest. “If people elected us to just come up here and vote in line with what the party wants, then it would be a whole lot different.”
The upper chamber is also considering its own version of the NDAA that does not include the election measure.
Tuesday’s procedural vote also advanced fiscal year 2027 funding for the State Department and other foreign operations and a GOP-authored measure commemorating the one-year anniversary of President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, among other measures.
Some conservatives, including Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, threatened to withhold their support during the test vote over a stalled border security package they want to put to a chamber-wide vote.
Johnson promised conservatives a vote on the legislation before the July 4 recess, but that deadline appears likely to pass without a floor vote. Republicans have also yet to release the bill text.
“There’s no consensus,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., told reporters Tuesday. “At the end of the day, we’ve got to have consensus before we can move forward.”