These 37 House Democrats Want a War with Iran

Earlier this year, after a number of conservative Democrats voted for a racist GOP messaging amendment to the Democrats’ gun control bill, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democratic Leadership excoriated the party’s moderate-to-conservative wing for doing so. The amendment had come in the form of a “motion to recommit,” the last-ditch effort of the minority party to change a bill, usually embraced as an opportunity for messaging amendments. The majority party’s response is typically to treat these as party-line procedural votes in order to neutralize them.

However, given what happened during the votes on yesterday’s government affairs and financial services spending bill, the right-wing of the caucus hasn’t gotten the memo.

Tom Graves (GA-14)’s motion to recommit called for a $10 million increase in funding for the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.

Graves was not subtle about its intent:

Rep. Tom Graves (R-GA-14) today pulled off an extremely rare House procedure and successfully passed language to support President Trump’s sanctions surge against Iran. The Motion to Recommit, offered before the bill’s final passage, amended the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Bill to boost support for the Treasury Department’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. This office plays a major role in countering national security threats, and is responsible for utilizing financial tools — such as sanctions — against bad actors and terrorists.

Today’s passage follows weeks of growing threats and aggression from Iran against the United States. This includes last week’s unprovoked attack and destruction of a U.S. Navy drone in the Strait of Hormuz, and the attack on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman earlier this month. On Monday, President Trump announced he was imposing new sanctions on Iran to target its top leadership.

“Today’s vote highlights strong bipartisan support in the House for President Trump’s sanctions against the Iranian regime’s growing threats. By providing President Trump with the resources needed to hold bad actors accountable, we’re supporting his effort to avoid war,” Rep. Graves said.

The motion passed 226 to 195, with 37 Democrats voting for it and 3 Republicans voting against it.

The 3 Republicans were Justin Amash (MI-03), Tom Massie (KY-04), and Don Young (AK-AL).

Here are the 37 Democrats: