House passes $893 billion defense policy bill with war powers repeal

House lawmakers on Wednesday approved plans for a $893 billion defense authorization bill despite strong objections from Democratic lawmakers about social issue fights and a lack of restrictions on presidential use of the National Guard.

The final 231-196 vote by the chamber included only 17 Democrats backing the must-pass budget policy measure, which includes a host of pay and benefits reauthorizations as well as spending guidelines for hundreds of Pentagon programs. Four Republicans voted against it.

The measure includes a 3.8% pay raise for service members in 2026 and an increase of the Defense Department’s end strength by about 26,000 troops next year. It also includes a series of reforms to the military’s defense acquisition process, with the goal of speeding the fielding of new systems and technology to the military’s front lines.

“It will continue historic improvements in the quality of life for our service members and their families. And it will build the ready, capable, and lethal fighting force we need to deter China and our other adversaries.”

But the bill — which faces conference negotiations with Senate lawmakers before it can be sent to the White House to become law — also included language restricting health care and service for transgender individuals, as well as restrictions on abortion services.

Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, voted against the measure and called it “a political exercise stuffed full of culture war asininity that greenlights the ongoing politicization of the Department of Defense at the expense of our national security.”

The day of debate over the measure on the House floor did include moments of bipartisan compromise.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle joined to defeat (by a 60-372 vote) a proposal from Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to eliminate nearly all support for Ukraine security assistance from next year’s military plans.

And a coalition of Republicans and Democrats approved an amendment to rescind a pair of open-ended war powers laws, originally adopted in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq but used for a host of military missions worldwide since then.

But Democratic proposals to limit President Donald Trump’s ability to use National Guard forces for domestic law enforcement support — as he has done in Washington, D.C., and threatened to do in other major cities — were blocked by Republican leadership.

Trump had pushed for the measure to contain language to formally change the name of the Defense Department to the “Department of War,” but Republican leaders also blocked debate on that proposal for now.

The $893 billion authorization bill sits about $30 billion below plans being debated this week in the Senate. If that work can be completed in the next few days, congressional staff will be able to begin conference work on the massive bill, with an eye towards a final compromise later this fall.