House Freedom Caucus chair pans Senate GOP's ‘big, beautiful bill'
Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), the chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, is staking opposition to the Senate's version of the 'big, beautiful bill,' spelling trouble for the legislation's chances of clearing the House down the road.
'The currently proposed Senate version of the One Big Beautiful Bill weakens key House priorities—it doesn't do enough to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicaid, it backtracks on Green New Scam elimination included in the House bill, and it greatly increases the deficit – taking us even further from a balanced budget,' Harris wrote in X.
The Freedom Caucus chair — who voted 'present' when the measure passed the House — said he will go a step further if the Senate's bill, without any changes, comes to the floor.
'If the Senate tries to jam the House with this version, I won't vote 'present.' I'll vote NO,' he added.
The criticism comes as the Senate is racing to reach consensus on key sticking points in the sprawling tax cut and spending package, with GOP leaders pushing to meet their self-imposed July 4 deadline for enactment. Once the Senate clears the measure the House will have to give it a final stamp of approval before it heads to President Trump's desk.
The timeline, however, is hanging in the balance as hardline conservatives — like Harris — and moderate Republicans in the House balk at changes the Senate made to the legislation.
The Senate Finance Committee released its part of the 'big, beautiful bill' last week, unveiling changes that toughen Medicaid cuts, ease the rollback of green-energy tax credits and drastically decrease the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap — a trio of alterations that are prompting concerns among a diverse group of Republicans.
Hardliners like Harris have been most incensed with the green-energy tax credits and what they see as insufficient spending cuts in the Senate's version of the bill.
The legislation, for example, appears to eliminate a provision that would have required climate-friendly energy sources to begin construction within 60 days of the bill's enactment to qualify for the credits, which was considered one of the most stringent energy conditions in the bill. Instead, the Senate's measure requires projects, including solar panels and wind farms, to start construction by the end of this year to receive the full credit.
After the House vote, Freedom Caucus members warned that they would not support a Senate bill if it weakened their core provisions, a warning shot across the Capitol.
In the lead-up to that vote, however, hardline conservatives were vocal in voicing their opposition to the legislation, arguing that they needed days — not hours — to correct their qualms. When the bill came to the floor, however, everyone in the group except Harris voted 'yes,' prompting questions about how long the group will continue its opposition this time around. Several members credited their support to last-minute assurances they received from the White House.
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Up until a few decades ago, Congress mostly consisted of older men who didn't have young children at home. That demographic has begun to shift in recent years, especially after Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., became the first female senator to give birth while in office in 2018. Since then, there's been somewhat of a baby boom on Capitol Hill — followed by increased efforts to make the country's deliberative body more accessible to young families. Those efforts reached a head earlier this year when Luna and Pettersen forged a rare bipartisan coalition, pressing GOP leaders to allow new mothers to vote remotely while taking maternity leave at home. The pair managed to freeze action on the floor and force a deal with leadership, who ultimately agreed to a watered-down rule change to cancel out absent votes. 'Thanks to POTUS and his support of new moms being able to vote when recovering from child (birth) as well as those who worked hard to get these changes done,' Luna said in a statement when the rule was finalized in April. 'If we truly want a pro-family Congress, these are the changes that need to happen.' But the system still contains flaws that make that system difficult in practice, Pettersen said. For example, shortly after the 'vote pairing' resolution was adopted, Pettersen told the Deseret News she reached out to her Republican colleagues to cancel out her vote so she could return home for her maternity leave. 'Of course, nobody would, because it was a Republican priority bill,' Pettersen said. 'It's just unworkable. And so there is so much more that we need to do.' While that may start with increased accommodations for young parents, Pettersen said, it should extend to making daily schedules more adaptable for lawmakers with children. 'We have schedules that are not made for for regular people, for young parents with young kids,' Pettersen said. 'It's a system that's created for retired, older, wealthier individuals, and so we need to modernize the way that our schedule looks.' Most lawmakers agree that Congress should be more convenient for those with children at home, arguing it would be beneficial for younger adults to influence policy. While it is difficult, 'it's doable,' they say. 'It's far more doable if you're a representative from Virginia or North Carolina or Pennsylvania than if you are from Utah or North Dakota,' Moore said. 'I think it's just an overall good trend that you're seeing more of it, and people are realizing it's possible. But the challenges are still very — they're insurmountable in some cases.' 'I do think it's a really good thing for us to be more accessible to parents, partly because that helps allow people who are a little bit younger to be here, which is a good thing,' Gill added. 'It adds a little bit of representation that maybe wasn't here before.'
