Long Island House Members Split Along Party Lines on Iran War Powers Vote

A Democratic effort to curb President Donald Trump's authority to strike Iran without congressional approval died in the U.S. House on March 5, with Long Island's four-member delegation splitting cleanly along party lines in a 219–212 defeat.

Republicans Nick LaLota of Amityville and Andrew Garbarino of Bayport voted against the resolution, joining all but two members of their party in opposing the measure. Democrats Tom Suozzi of Glen Cove and Laura Gillen of Rockville Centre voted in favor, joined by the overwhelming majority of their caucus; only four House Democrats broke with their party to oppose the resolution.

LaLota, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, defended his vote in blunt terms after the count was final. "As I've said before, the president has made the right call that allowing Iran to continue to develop a nuclear weapon poses a much greater risk than using an airstrike against Iran does now," he said.

The resolution was introduced under the War Powers Resolution, enacted during the Vietnam War to give Congress a greater role in decisions about U.S. military engagements. Its objective was to require the president to seek congressional authorization before continuing military action against Iran. But the vote carried an air of political theater from the outset: the U.S. Senate had already blocked advancement of a similar war powers measure the day before, along largely partisan lines, rendering whatever the House decided effectively moot.

Democrats pressed forward anyway. Led by House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn, they wanted to put every member on record regarding Trump's backing of a U.S.-Israel military operation against Iran, with the constitutional argument that Congress alone holds the power to declare war.

The Iran vote was not the only consequential roll call of the afternoon for Long Island's delegation. Moments after the war powers resolution failed, the House advanced a GOP-backed funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security 221–209, with LaLota, Garbarino, Suozzi, and Gillen again splitting along party lines. DHS has been in a partial shutdown since last month, the result of a standoff over the Trump administration's immigration enforcement tactics that had previously blocked the bill's passage. The measure now moves to the Senate, where its fate remains uncertain.