NASHVILLE—Six of Tennessee’s eight Republican congressional members opposed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s government funding deal over the weekend to keep the government running through Nov. 17, averting a government default.
U.S. Reps. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Southeast Tennessee, the lone Tennessee member of the House Appropriations Committee, and David Kustoff, R-Memphis, were the two lone Tennessee Republicans voting to support the agreement, which passed the chamber on a 335-91 vote.
House Democrats were the ones who pushed the deal over the top, providing 209 of the votes to Republican members’ 126 votes while 90 GOP members and one Democrat voted against it. President Joe Biden signed the measure into law.
The House’s oddball coalition developed after the narrowly Democratic-led Senate reached an agreement with many Republicans to extend funding through mid-November. Both of Tennessee’s Republican U.S. senators, Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty, voted no.
“This legislation did nothing to address Biden’s open border,” Blackburn told Newsweek, “nor did it reduce Biden’s reckless government spending.”