Third of GOP Freshmen Rebel on Budget Vote

This afternoon, 27 Republican freshmen bucked the leadership's wishes and voted against the continuing resolution that would fund the government through the end of September.

Over the past few weeks, we've seen freshmen Republicans start to dissent from leadership more and more.

On March 1st, only one freshman Republican - Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) - voted against a two week bill that would keep government running. By last week, 25 freshmen had decided to vote against a one-week continuing resolution that was passed at the last minute. And today's vote brought the number of dissenters up by another two to 27.

To put that in perspective, this means that 31% of the freshman class' 87 members voted against its Republican leadership. Only 21% of non-freshmen did the same.

There were two major reasons that freshmen have been giving to explain their 'nay' vote on today's budget deal: that it doesn't cut enough, and that it didn't contain certain policy riders.

"While this agreement moves us in the right direction, I don’t believe it moves the dial enough to demonstrate government is prepared to make those same difficult decisions," said Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-MI2) after the vote in a press release.

"Beyond the cost, this spending ‘deal’ lacks about two dozen important policy provisions agreed to in H.R. 1.  Only one of the five important pro-life riders made it in.  There are no measures to stop the job-killing EPA and to defund Obamacare entirely," said Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS1) in a statement.

Republicans who voted for the government to keep running under the terms of the deal saw it differently.

“Today I voted to cut $40 billion in spending, and keep our Government open. We took a bold, first step today with this spending cut - but it is only the first step in our effort to rein in out-of-control spending.  It’s now time to get to the real work in the 2012 Budget," said freshman Rep. Reid Ribble (R-WI8).

The House of Representatives will vote on Rep. Paul Ryan's budget plan on Friday.

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