Wanted: More Republicans Who Value the Republic [View all]

The scattered efforts by members of Trump’s own party to slow him down are a bare beginning of what’s needed.

https://prospect.org/2026/01/13/trump-republicans-house-senate-opposition-collins-murkowski-hawley/


Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) conducts a news conference in the Capitol Visitor Center after a meeting of the House Republican Conference, January 7, 2026. Credit: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images

Last Thursday, the House voted 230-196 to pass a clean three-year extension of subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. This came after four Republicans joined Democrats in forcing the vote with a discharge petition. A total of 17 Republicans, mostly in swing districts, joined with Democrats to pass the extension. The measure now goes to the Senate, where it will probably be watered down or die. In December, an identical bill got 51 votes in the Senate, where it takes 60 to break a filibuster. There is some talk about negotiations on a subsidy extension, but nothing that can attract broad support has been proposed.

Also on Thursday, the Senate by a margin of 52-47 advanced a measure to require President Trump to get Congress’s consent for military operations in Venezuela under the War Powers Act. Five Republicans voted with Democrats—Todd Young of Indiana, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Josh Hawley of Missouri. If passed by the Senate, the resolution would go to the House, to face an uncertain fate. A cynic might view this routine as purely performative, with Republicans in the two houses periodically switching roles as tough cop and fake cop. It allows a few Republicans to put on a show of distance from Trump that makes no real difference.

But that’s a little too cynical. The opposition to Trump policies on the part of a handful of Republicans is real. There just aren’t enough of them, on enough key issues. The five GOP senators who voted to advance a war powers resolution did get Trump’s attention. He posted on Truth Social that they “should never be elected to office again,” and personally phoned Sen. Collins to berate her in what sources called a “profanity-laced rant.”

Last week, in another hopeful sign, Republicans on the Senate Appropriations Committee joined Democrats in restoring most of Trump’s cuts to scientific research. Trump’s budget included an overall cut in scientific funding to $154 billion from $198 billion—a drop of 22 percent. The Senate committee voted to appropriate roughly $188 billion, a cut of only 4 percent, for research in key agencies such as NSF, NASA, EPA, the Department of Energy, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

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