WASHINGTON—A People’s World study of 600-plus rollcall votes in the U.S. House in 2025 confirms what even casual observers, and Donald Trump himself, know: The House was sharply split along partisan lines, more so than ever, and the chief legislator was the nation’s chief executive, Trump himself.
There were hundreds of close votes—those with margins of 10 or fewer–reflecting remarkable unity within the two parties. The GOP’s maximum strength during the whole first year of the 119th Congress was 222, compared to 213 Democrats. By the end of the year, it was 220-215, meaning defection of just three Republicans could give the minority Democrats a legislative win–if they all stuck together.
Wins rarely occurred, though. The GOP was just as united, almost all of the time.
One result: A party-line 211-213 vote in December gave Trump a virtual green light for his January 3 invasion of Venezuela and kidnapping and deposition of its president, Nicolas Maduro. Democrats voted 210-1 against invading, while the GOP voted 210-3 to invade.
The ideological unity of the GOP is important. Not only does it show constant genuflection to Trump, but it shows constant catering to the corporate campaign contributors who back both the tyrannical chief executive and his congressional handmaidens—to the detriment of the rest of us.
The weakness of the House GOP’s margin let Trump, who ordinarily rules by fiat, wield extraordinary influence, and he said so. At one point, he even commented about House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., “I’m doing his job for him,” rounding up votes.
House floor votes, of course, are the most-visible and recorded part of a lawmaker’s job, even in a Congress that has yielded a lot of its remaining power to Trump—as votes in our study show.
But they’re not the whole job. There is the slog work of legislating through the committee system, though House GOP leaders, especially Johnson, trash that too at Trump’s behest. There is catering to lobbyists. There is pushing (”whipping” in congressional terms) legislation. And there are lawmakers who count votes for leaders, who are really effective at lobbying colleagues, or both.
There are also lawmakers who wait and wait and wait until they know a bill’s fate before either signing on as a cosponsor or voting for or against it. Then-Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Ore., and daughter of a Teamster, gave a prime example of that late in the prior Congress, in August 2024.
That month, during a recess, Chavez-DeRemer cosponsored labor’s #1 priority, the Protect The Right To Organize (PRO) Act, after it had no chance in the House and fell victim to corporate pressure and a Senate filibuster threat. She said she did so to protect her swing district, should the PRO Act ever make it to House-Senate negotiations. By the time she signed, it was dead. And she lost re-election.
Still, when you get right down to it, roll calls, despite Trump’s clout–and even sometimes adding to it–are important. With that in mind, we present our study. The 16 votes below are distilled from all the rollcalls and from approximately 30 we investigated. Some observations for readers to keep in mind:
- Roll call votes can be divided into groups: (a) Those which are extremely close (b) those which are lopsided and bipartisan, on uncontroversial measures (c) “messaging” votes where a particular faction wants to push an issue—usually a social issue, such as anti-abortion or anti-gay rights—knowing it will likely go nowhere later, and (d) the very rare upset or revolt.
- Because both parties mostly vote as blocs, readers should look up the names and party labels of their own individual lawmakers, such as Speaker Mike Johnson and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, both R-La., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.
In the vote tallies, we will print only the names and states of lawmakers who OPPOSED the party consensus. If your lawmaker’s name isn’t there, he or she voted with the party, or, in rare cases, did not vote or voted “present.”
WORKERS RIGHTS
The one clear-cut vote on worker rights came in the session’s final days. A rarely used device called a “discharge petition” forced a House floor vote on December 11 on the Protect America’s Workforce Act. The AFL-CIO and its allies campaigned long and hard for the 218 signatures—a majority—to force the legislation out of the committee where Speaker Johnson had sent it to die.
Killing discharge petitions was, until November-December 2025, a routine of party loyalty. Since then, a handful of Republicans—all of whom are politically vulnerable, represent swing seats or both—defied Johnson and the GOP leaders and joined all the Democrats to sign petitions. That’s what pried the Protect America’s Workforce Act loose.
The bill, HR2550, would reinstate all the union contracts covering 1.5 million federal workers, which was one of Trump’s singular “achievements.” There were two votes on it: One to discharge the relevant committee from burying the bill and the other to pass it. They marked two of the few times a House majority defied Trump. The fate of the bill in the GOP-run Senate is uncertain, and even if senators approve it, Trump will veto it.
Nevertheless, the AFL-CIO has launched a nationwide campaign to put pressure on senators. Its toll-free number is 844-994-4554.
“Since Trump’s first executive order in March ripped away collective bargaining rights from nearly one million workers, it’s only gotten worse,” the federation reports. Besides including contracts at even more agencies, “the administration has begun implementing the executive orders by canceling the contracts of nearly 450,000 federal workers at the Departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
“This not only hurts federal workers. It also hurts our communities and the people who rely on the critical services these workers provide.
“And we know Trump won’t stop with federal workers. His Project 2025 agenda spelled it out loud and clear: He and his administration want to put an end to collective bargaining and make sure workers are powerless to oppose his actions.”
The final vote on December 11 for the Protect America’s Workforce Act was 231-195. Democrats voted for it 211-0. Republicans opposed it 20-195. The 20 Republicans who defied the party line were Reps. Don Bacon (Neb.), Michael Bost (Ill.) Robert Bresnahan, Ryan Mackenzie and Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Gabe Evans (Colo.), Andrew Gabarino, Nick LaLota, Nicole Maliotakis and Michael Lawler (all N.Y.), David Joyce and Michael Turner, (Ohio), Thomas Kean Jr., Jeff Van Drew and Chris Smith (N.J.), Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zachary Nunn (Iowa), Pete Stauber (Minn.), David Valadao (Calif.) and Derrick Van Orden (Wis.).
Valadao has rebelled before. He’s one of two remaining House Republicans, out of 10 overall, who voted almost five years ago to impeach Trump for Jan. 6. Fitzpatrick led the handful of GOPers who signed the discharge petition. The discharge motion passed, after they got the 218 signatures, 222-200 on December 10, Republicans 13 for and 200 against, Democrats 209 for, none against.
HEALTH CARE TAX BREAKS
The Trump regime and congressional Republicans faced off against Democrats over extending Obamacare tax credits either permanently or for three years. The standoff led to the record 43-day partial government shutdown that Trump and House Speaker Johnson engineered. Johnson’s role was key: He adjourned the House for what was supposed to be a one-week break in mid-September, and then kept them out for almost two months instead.
The deadlock broke after a key union, the Government Employees, heeding its suffering and divided membership, abandoned its prior agreement on standing fast about the ACA/Obamacare tax credits. Like the Senate Democrats, it accepted GOP assurances for a vote on a stand-alone tax credit bill sometime in early 2026—after the damage is already done.
The seeds of the struggle were planted when, on party-line votes, Congress passed, and Trump signed what Trump called his “One Big Beautiful Bill,” HR1, on July 3-4. To pay for its 10-year $4.5 trillion tax cut for the GOP’s corporate backers and the 1%, the BBB bill cut Medicare by $500 billion, Medicaid by almost double that, and eliminated the tax credits, which expired Dec. 31, 2025.
Nationwide angst ensued. The BBB threw millions of people out of health care coverage. Obamacare’s costs could double or more, and insurance premiums would rise for the rest of us. Angry people flooded lawmakers’ “town halls,” demanding restoration of the tax credits. Wisconsin Republican Derrick Van Orden was literally booed off the stage at his own town hall, and he wasn’t the only one. Speaker Johnson told the rest of the Republicans to either switch to “virtual” town halls via Zoom or cut them out altogether.
There were several votes on the Big Beautiful Bill. Democrats called it the Big Ugly Bill (or worse):
HR1 May 22 Initial House passage of The Big Beautiful Bill, 215-214-1. All 212 Democrats voted no. Republicans voting “no” were: Warren Davidson of Ohio and Thomas Massie of Kentucky. Republican Herb Harris of Maryland’s Eastern Shore, a leader in the so-called far right “Freedom Caucus,” voted present. The other 215 Republicans voted “yes.”
Massie’s name will appear often among GOP naysayers. He opposes virtually all federal spending outside what is needed “for the common defense” and sometimes even that. His “no” votes were so common in this session that Trump is prospecting for a GOP primary challenger against him.
HR1 July 3 Final passage, after Senate changes, of the Big Beautiful Bill Act, 218-214. All 212 Democrats voted no. Republicans backed it 218-2: Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Massie.
Months later came the health care tax break votes:
HR498 December 15 GOP’S “Do no harm to Medicaid Act” passed 215-201: Republicans 211-0, Democrats 4-201. Democrats for: Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, Donald Davis, D-N.C., Vicente Gonzalez, D-Texas and Marie Perez, D-Wash.
HR6703 December 17 GOP’s “Lower health care premiums for all Americans Act”—the $1000 per person “federal check to every taxpayer plan”—a Trump idea–passed 216-211: Republicans 216 for and one against; Democrats zero for-210 against. The Republican: Massie of Kentucky, again.
MONEY, MONEY, MONEY: FUNDING THE GOVERNMENT
Call these votes a missed opportunity for congressional Democrats, especially in the Senate. There, Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., deservedly caught hell for not keeping his caucus in line and thus forcing the ruling Republicans to bargain on the health care tax credits—unless the GOP preferred keeping government closed. Many Republicans, heeding corporate campaign contributors, who then would be free to plunder and exploit all of us, want to close or kill the government.
To avoid that, lawmakers had to approve several “continuing resolutions,” temporary money bills to keep the government going and the lights on, because they couldn’t agree on permanent funding. The alternative was a shutdown, which is what happened at midnight on September 30.
That closure finally ended, after 42 days, when seven defecting Senate Democrats, plus independent Angus King of Maine, voted with 52 of the 53 Republicans for the latest CR. There were only scattered defections among House Democrats or Republicans, so the GOP prevailed every time.
The House passed that third CR on November 12, 213-209. It keeps the government going–and stops Trump’s arbitrary firings of federal workers via his Office of Management and Budget Director, Russell Vought–through January 30. It also gives all the furloughed federal workers and those, such as air traffic controllers, who had to toil without pay, back pay, date TBA. But the scenario, including another shutdown and more firings by worker-hater Vought, could resume at midnight January 30.
That final and key roll call accepted the Senate version of HR5371, the CR. It was a straight party-line vote all the way: All Republicans for, all Democrats against. But 11 lawmakers—five Republicans and six Democrats–didn’t vote. Non-voting Democrats were Jake Auchincloss (Mass.), Maxwell Frost (Fla.), Johnny Olszewski (Md.), Bonnie Watson Coleman (N.J.), and Nikema Williams (Ga.). Non-voting Republicans were Jodey Arrington and Michael McCaul (Texas), Mike Kennedy (Utah), David Schweikert (Ariz.), Laurel Lee (Fla.), and Mary Miller (Ill.).
Before that came another CR, on September 19. This one was almost as close: It passed 217-212. Republicans backed it 216-2. The foes were Massie (Ky.), again, and Victoria Spartz (Ind.). One Democrat, Maine’s Jared Golden, voted for it, and 210 voted against it. Golden, who is retiring at the end of this Congress, is the sole Northeastern Democrat to win a district in 2024, which Trump also carried. He’s also been a lead sponsor of several pro-worker bills.
In between the continuing resolutions, the GOP majority genuflected to Trump—and to its own extreme right-wing–by defunding the Public Broadcasting System and National Public Radio. Both are bugaboos of the radical right and the MAGAites because their reporting does not pull punches about Trump’s policies. The two votes were again party-line.
AFL-CIO Legislative Director Jody Calemine backed $1 billion in advance funding for PBS and NPR, and opposed Trump’s move to kill the money, in a July 18 letter to lawmakers.
“Our members work for public television and radio stations across the United States, and on productions created for these outlets. Union members in public media” work in “every-day, middle-class Americans who are able to sustain careers that provide family-supporting pay, health insurance, and retirement security,” while bringing people unbiased and hard-hitting news, Calemine wrote.
“Slashing funding for public media will cost jobs and economically hurt these everyday people, while disadvantaging Americans who currently enjoy and benefit from public media programming.”
Killing the money for NPR and PBS was part of a larger Trump plan to revoke money Congress previously appropriated, overriding the constitutional “power of the purse” lawmakers have. Both revocation votes were close Republican wins: 214-212 on June 3 and 216-213 on July 18. All voting Democrats voted to fund PBS and NPR both times. Republicans Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Michael Turner of Ohio, Mark Amodei of Nevada, and Nicole Maliotakis of New York joined them on the first vote, while Fitzpatrick and Turner joined the Democrats on the second tally.
On April 10, the House, again by a party-line 216-214 margin, passed a budget “blueprint” for fiscal year 2026, which began October 1. All Democrats voted no. Republicans Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Victoria Spartz of Indiana also voted no. Two Republicans and a Democrat did not vote. The budget blueprint paved the way for Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill.
BACKING TRUMP’S TROOPS INTO DEEP-BLUE L.A. AND D.C.
Twice, the House backed Trump’s troop deployments to Democratic big cities—Los Angeles and D.C.—run by Black woman mayors and which are majority people of color, though no one color has a majority in either. Los Angeles is 45% Hispanic, D.C. is 42% each Black and white, 11% Hispanic and the rest other races.
There’s been no similar vote on Trump sending vicious and violent ICE agents to Chicago. The city and unions effectively stopped “Operation Midway Blitz” in court, though raids, beatings, arrests, detentions, and deportations may resume in the spring when the weather warms up. Federal courts also stopped Trump’s scheme to co-opt California National Guards and send them to Portland, Ore., to “protect” the ICE agents.
The D.C. vote is one of the few where a significant number of Democrats, 30, broke from the party consensus. They joined the GOP’s overwhelming anti-D.C. vote. Next to slamming federal workers as lazy and overpaid, bashing the Nation’s Capital and its 710,000 residents has been a favorite GOP political piñata for years. The subtext of the Republican hate: Race.
All but four voting Republicans voted against D.C., thus lauding Trump’s “emergency,” which turned ICE agents loose to chase, invade, arrest, beat, hogtie, and deport anyone with brown skin—Latino or not, citizen or not–from stores and restaurants, even pulling them out of their cars, and invading their homes.
In 2025, the House OKd six pieces of anti-D.C. legislation, vetoing District government actions—which it has the U.S. Constitutional right to do. Pro-corporate Mayor Muriel Bowser (D), who kowtowed to Trump, offered little resistance. She even tried, but failed, to repeal D.C.’s “sanctuary city” law, and ordered her police to help ICE’s vicious and violent agents anyway.
D.C’s non-voting delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, 88, the oldest U.S. House member, was virtually silent—leading to challengers in 2026 for the seat she’s held for 36 years.
HR 2096, the Protecting Our Nation’s Capital Emergency Act, passed on June 10 235-178-1. Republicans backed it 205-4. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., Scott Perry, R-Pa., Tom McClintock, R-Calif., and Chip Roy, R-Texas, voted no.
The 30 Democrats who voted “yes” were Nikki Budzinski and Eric Sorensen, D-Ill., Emilia Sykes, D-Ohio, Gilbert Cisneros, Adam Gray, Dave Min, Joey Panetta, Mike Thompson, Derek Tran, George Whitesides, and Josh Harder, all D-Calif., Donald Davis, D-N.C., Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, D-Texas, Jared Golden, D-Maine, Tom Suozzi, Laura Gillen, Josh Riley and Patrick Ryan, all D-N.Y., Greg Landsman, D-Ohio, Frank Mrvan, D-Ind., Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., Susie Lee, D-Nev., Chris Pappas, D-N.H., Marie Perez, D-Wash., Brittany Pettersen, D-Colo., Hillary Scholten, D-Mich., Kim Schrier, D-Wash., Greg Stanton, D-Ariz., and Eugene Vindman, D-Va. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, voted present.
According to the House Select Committee on the January 6 invasion, Perry, one of the four GOP “no’s”, is a key congressional link between Trump, his White House plotters, and his insurrectionists who tried the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol coup d’etat. Democrat Pappas, a “yes,” is running for senator.
H RES 516 on June 27 condemned the “riots” in L.A. The “rioters” the GOP majority condemned were the anti-ICE protesters, who were peaceful, and not the violent ICE agents who knocked down, knocked out, handcuffed and trundled off to jail California Service Employees President David Huerta. He spent a night in the hospital with a concussion. Since then, the Trump-named U.S. Attorney in L.A., charged Huerta—not the agents—with misdemeanors. The trial is pending. The 215-195 vote included all 208 Republicans and Democrats Jim Costa and Adam Gray (Calif.), Henry Cuellar (Texas), Donald Davis (N.C.), Laura Gillen and Tom Suozzi (N.Y.), and Jared Golden (Maine).
WAR AND PEACE
The House often ducked the issue of war and peace.
HCONRES (Concurrent Resolution) 64 December 17 The Democrats came close, however, to ordering Trump to “direct removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against Venezuela…not authorized by Congress.” They lost 211-213. Three Republicans voted against Trump: Greene of Georgia, Don Bacon of Nebraska, who’s a veteran, and Thomas Massie of Kentucky. Democrats voted 208-1 –Henry Cuellar of Texas–to stop Trump’s continuing crusade against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. All other Republicans backed Trump.
HCONRES 61 December 17. By 210-216, Democrats failed to make Trump obey the 1973 War Powers Resolution and “remove United States Armed Forces from hostilities with presidentially designated terrorist organizations in the Western Hemisphere,” in other words, “drug runners” in the Caribbean Sea. Bacon and Massie joined 208 Democrats to invoke the law. Democrats Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas and 214 Republicans bent the knee to Trump..
In another obvious example of GOP genuflection to Trump, on May 8, the House passed HR276, trying to write into law Trump’s arrogant renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.” The vote was 211-206, with all the Democrats plus Bacon opposed.
Trump’s dictate prompted Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum to display a 1607 Spanish map portraying the entire North American continent as “Americana Mexicana.” “Sounds good, no?” Sheinbaum deadpanned. Then she displayed another map, showing the territory—one-third of the entire country—Mexico lost to the U.S. in 1846-48 in this nation’s first big imperialist war. The lost land includes all of Texas, Arizona, Nevada, California, and New Mexico, and it reaches into the Oklahoma panhandle and southern Colorado.
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