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The 4 Black Caucus Members Who Voted with the GOP on #SyrianRefugees

The 4 Black Caucus Members Who Voted with the GOP on #SyrianRefugees

lauren victoria burke
November 19, 2015

Rep. David Scott (D-GA)
Rep. Terri Sewell (D-AL)
Rep. Marc Veasey (D-TX)
Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-GA)

RELATED // VOTE on Syrian Refugees

On Thursday, November 19, 2015, six days after the Paris terror attacks that killed 130 people, the U.S. House passed HR 4038, the American SAFE Act, by a vote of 289 to 137. The bill was drafted by Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, and required the FBI director, the secretary of Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence to personally certify that each Syrian or Iraqi refugee admitted to the United States posed no threat. In practice, the certification requirement would have halted the Obama administration’s pledge to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees.

The vote cleared the two-thirds threshold needed to override a presidential veto. Forty-seven House Democrats broke with President Barack Obama and voted yes, a defection number that stunned the White House. Chief of Staff Denis McDonough had spent the previous 24 hours on the phone trying to hold the Democratic caucus.

Four of those 47 Democratic defectors were members of the Congressional Black Caucus: Rep. Sanford Bishop (GA-2), Rep. David Scott (GA-13), Rep. Terri Sewell (AL-7) and Rep. Marc Veasey (TX-33). All four represent districts with significant white-rural or white-suburban populations, and three of the four (Bishop, Scott, Veasey) had voted with Republicans before on security-related measures.

Bishop, the most senior of the group at 12 terms, issued a statement the next morning defending his vote. “My first duty is the safety of the people I represent in southwest Georgia,” Bishop said. “I support the refugee program, but this bill adds a certification step. I voted for the step.” Sewell, who represents Alabama’s Black Belt and the city of Selma, said her office had received over 2,000 calls from constituents in 72 hours, the overwhelming majority urging her to vote yes.

The CBC whip count had not anticipated all four. CBC Chairman G.K. Butterfield (D-NC) told reporters in the Capitol’s Speakers Lobby that he was “disappointed” and added that the caucus had discussed the bill at its Wednesday meeting. “We are not of one mind on this vote,” Butterfield said. The remaining 39 CBC members voted no.

HR 4038 never became law. Senate Democrats, led by Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), filibustered a companion measure in January 2016. But the House vote remains one of the cleanest recent examples of CBC members splitting from the Democratic Party on a security-and-race issue, a pattern that also showed up on votes for the 2013 Gun Background Check Amendment and the 2014 Continuing Resolution on border security.