WASHINGTON — The House on Tuesday adopted a resolution to denounce socialism "in all its forms" in a 220 to 192 to 2 vote, with eight Democrats joining every Republican in support and two Democrats voting present, as Republican leaders forced the party on record two months before the November elections.
The vote set up an unusual internal disciplinary fight inside the House Democratic Caucus. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Minority Whip Katherine Clark and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar issued a joint statement condemning Reps. Jared Golden of Maine and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, two moderates whose defection on an earlier procedural vote allowed the resolution to reach the floor, and referred potential consequences to the Committee on Caucus Rules.
The resolution, House Resolution 1490, also reaffirms Republican support for President Trump's signature voting-regulations bill, the SAVE America Act, which has stalled for months in the Senate for lack of a simple majority. GOP leaders scheduled the vote after Democratic primary voters embraced a wave of democratic socialist candidates, including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and, more recently, Darializa Avila Chevalier of New York and Melat Kiros of Colorado, both of whom unseated incumbent House Democrats in the summer's primaries.
Who crossed over
The eight Democrats who voted yes were Reps. Kathy Castor of Florida, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Don Davis of North Carolina, Golden, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, Gluesenkamp Perez, Darren Soto of Florida and Gabe Vasquez of New Mexico, according to CBS News. Reps. Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania and Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire voted present.
The floor tally followed a party-line procedural vote earlier Tuesday that nearly failed after a handful of Republican hardliners voted no over an unrelated short-term government funding fight. Golden and Gluesenkamp Perez broke ranks on that rule vote and supplied the margin that let the resolution proceed.
The leadership response
"The decision by two of our colleagues to blindside the entire House Democratic Caucus and join with the Republican majority to pass a procedural rule on the brink of failing represents a significant breach of trust," Jeffries, Clark and Aguilar said in the joint statement. "It is an action that necessitates a serious response, and we have asked the Committee on Caucus Rules to take this up in short order."
Aguilar, speaking to reporters earlier Tuesday, said House Democrats reject the socialist label but object to the resolution's link to the voting bill. "We're capitalists. We believe in a capitalist system and rules and laws," the California lawmaker said. "But what Republicans are seeking to do here is to just add in another talking point where they can talk about the SAVE Act."
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican, framed the resolution around noncitizen voting, which he said appears in the Democratic Socialists of America platform. "Not only do we denounce socialism, but also the idea of people that aren't American citizens voting in our elections, because that's part of their platform," Scalise said.
The counterpoint
Writing on the Fox News opinion page this week, Chet Love, managing partner of Cornerstone Generative Intelligence and a former SolarCity policy counsel, argued that floor resolutions alone will not blunt the socialist advance. "Socialism is gaining ground because, for too many, capitalism has become a spectator sport," Love wrote, pointing to a national homeownership rate of 65 percent — down from a 2004 peak of 69.2 percent — and a rate of just 35.2 percent among Americans under 35. The remedy, he wrote, is broader ownership of homes and stock, not additional condemnations.
The Committee on Caucus Rules has not set a date to take up the Golden and Gluesenkamp Perez matter. The SAVE America Act remains parked in the Senate.