Congress overrides veto of Thornberry defense bill

By Abby Livingston, Texas Tribune

In a rare holiday week vote, members of the US House returned to Washington on December 28 to override President Trump’s veto of a bill that handles the budget and spending of the Department of Defense. The Senate followed suit on New Year’s Day to confirm the first Congressional veto override of the Trump administration.

The National Defense Authorization Act is a $740 billion bill that dates back to 1961 it is one of the few annual bipartisan pieces of legislation left in Congress. House Democrats named this year’s NDAA in honor of a Texas Republican, US Rep. Mac Thornberry of Clarendon. Thornberry is a former chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and retired on January 3.

Even though it easily passed the House and the Senate earlier this month, Trump followed through on a long-threatened veto last Wednesday, complaining most frequently about a provision that would begin the process of renaming military bases named for Confederate leaders and for not including a repeal of a liability shield for internet companies.

Thornberry advocated December 28 for the bill in one of his final appearances – if not his last appearance – on the US House floor.

“I continue to support this bill, as more than 80 percent of the House did just 20 days ago,” he said. “It’s the exact same bill. Not a comma has changed.”

“The president has exercised his constitutional prerogative now…It’s up to up to us,” he added. “Our troops the country, indeed the world is watching to see what we will do, whether we can tune out other differences and still come together to support the men and women of the military and American national security.”

This is the first time Congress has overridden a Trump veto, which involves two-thirds of each chamber voting in favor of the vetoed legislation.

In the Senate, like most of his colleagues, US Sen. John Cornyn also backed the NDAA.

US Sen. Ted Cruz was one of 13 other senators to vote against the NDAA earlier in December and voted against overriding the president. The state’s junior senator cited a litany of reasons at the time that included the Confederate base naming issue and the internet liability shield.

Texas House Republicans who voted against the override included: US Reps. Jodey Arrington of Lubbock, Brian Babin of Woodville, Michael Burgess of Lewisville, Michael Cloud of Victoria, Lance Gooden of Terrell, Louie Gohmert of Tyler, Chip Roy of Austin and Randy Weber of Friendswood.

Roy indicated on Twitter his logic in voting against an override was rooted in giving a chief executive to bring troops home from Afghanistan.

Trump has spent much of this year lobbying to repeal that legal provision – known as Section 230 – which Congress passed in the early days of the Internet in order to shield online companies from liability over the content users post.

Many Republican officeholders allege social media companies are biased against conservatives, and they argue that repealing Section 230 would be a means to combat this perceived inequity. Trump’s ire at the language escalated earlier this year when Twitter began to add fact check language to his false tweets.

A number of officeholders – even those who might agree with this position – complain that discussions around commerce belong in other legislation, not a sweeping, traditionally bipartisan bill that addresses funding the armed services.