Long Island congressional members vote along party lines on War Powers Act

WASHINGTON — A Democratic effort to block President Donald Trump from further strikes on Iran without congressional consent was defeated in a 219-212 vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday, with Long Island’s four members split along party lines.

Moments later, the four lawmakers similarly stuck with their respective parties as the House advanced a GOP-backed funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security in a 221-209 vote.

DHS has been in a partial shutdown since last month amid a standoff over the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics, which previously blocked the bill’s passage. The bill now awaits Senate approval.

Earlier, the war powers resolution was defeated with near-total Republican opposition, as GOP Reps. Nick LaLota (R-Amityville) and Andrew Garbarino (R-Bayport) joined all but two members of their party in voting against the measure.

Long Island Democratic Reps. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) and Laura Gillen (D-Rockville Centre) voted in favor of the resolution. Just four of their party colleagues voted against it.

The vote was largely symbolic, because the U.S. Senate had already blocked advancement of a similar war powers measure largely along party lines on Wednesday.

But Democrats, led by House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-Brooklyn), wanted to put members on record to reflect the extent of political support, or opposition, to Trump’s backing of a U.S.-Israel military operation against Iran with approval from Congress, which alone has the power to declare war.

LaLota — a U.S. Naval Academy graduate — said after the vote: "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."

But Gillen said, "Now that we face escalation, the administration must not put boots on the ground and risk the lives of our service members while there is no plan to end this conflict."

Suozzi had announced Wednesday he would also be supporting the bill to require congressional war powers consent, offering similar concern over Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s suggestion that he is willing to commit to troops on the ground.

The funding bill's passage came after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem earlier Thursday was fired by Trump. How much of a role her ouster played in its passage is unclear.

The bill was passed despite most House Democrats still demanding that Republicans revise its language to rein in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as Customs and Border Protection, after federal agents killed two Americans in Minneapolis.

Gillen and Suozzi — who both faced criticism from their party for backing the measure initially without those revisions — both voted against it this time.

But with funding at stake for operations of the U.S. Coast Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the nation’s cybersecurity infrastructure, the fight became too much a challenge for some other Democrats to continue pressing.

Garbarino, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, pressured Democrats before the vote to "stop playing dangerous games" and back the funding bill.

"As threats from Iran escalate, America must be fully prepared to respond to and mitigate heightened threats, to the homeland," he said.