Reps. Anthony D'Esposito, Andrew Garbarino and Nick LaLota on front lines of GOP internal struggle

WASHINGTON — Conservative Illinois Republican Rep. Mary Miller last week proposed an amendment to the reauthorization bill for the Federal Aviation Administration that would restrict funds for diversity, equity and inclusion officials or training.

Yet despite the GOP House majority, the measure failed in a 254-181 vote — defeated by Democrats and 42 Republicans, including Long Island’s GOP congressmen: Nick LaLota of Amityville, Anthony D’Esposito of Island Park and Andrew Garbarino of Bayport.

That measure was one of a dozen amendments to the FAA reauthorization bill offered by ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus members and allies that the Long Islanders and other moderate Republicans helped defeat by voting with minority Democrats.

Those votes highlight a schism within the House Republicans' slim four-vote majority. As many as four dozen hard-core conservatives regularly force votes on hot-button social and other issues, and a handful to dozens of moderates push back by crossing the aisle and voting no.

LaLota, D’Esposito and Garbarino — ranked by UCLA’s Voteview.com as among the most moderate Republicans in the House — find themselves on the front lines of that intraparty struggle as they represent Long Island’s generally centrist House districts.

But they also remain staunch Republicans who fall in with their party more than 95% of the time and oppose most of the House Democrats’ agenda and priorities, including abortion rights, affirmative action and big government spending programs.

“We are common-sense conservatives,” LaLota said. “We don’t shy from a specifically fiscally conservative agenda, and we’re very strong on national defense and public safety.”

Princeton University political science professor Frances Lee said, “All groups of Republicans are different shades of conservative.”

Still, the divide among House Republicans shows up sometimes when it is time to vote.

“Congress is more polarized than at any time in recent history, and it’s not just between the two parties, it’s within each party,” said Steve Israel, a former Democratic congressman from Long Island and now director of Cornell University Institute of Politics and Global Affairs.

“You have moderates driving an agenda to the middle and the rest driving it to the fringes,” he said. “These conflicts explain why every day is another legislative collision.”

Recent votes

Last Wednesday night, the House met to vote on nearly two dozen amendments to the FAA reauthorization bill — and 17 of them failed.

During that voting marathon, LaLota, D’Esposito and Garbarino clustered on the right-hand side of the chamber near the well of the House, where they talked and weighed the yeas and nays on a rapid-fire series of amendments with just two minutes for each vote. 

Rep. George Santos (R-Nassau/Queens), Long Island's fourth House member who faces a federal indictment and investigations, most of the time sat toward the back of the chamber along the middle aisle with some Freedom Caucus members.

Santos, who has pleaded not guilty to charges he ripped off political donors, fraudulently received unemployment benefits and lied on his financial disclosure forms, frequently voted the same way on the amendments as the conservatives sitting around him.

Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), for example, proposed an amendment to require that FAA studies of turbulence during flights focus only on weather conditions, not climate change. LaLota, D’Esposito and Garbarino were among 16 Republicans who voted with Democrats to defeat it. Santos voted for it.

The Long Island trio also joined 29 other Republicans and all Democrats to reject Ogles’ bill to require an FAA program created to understand the potential of drones to consider only economic factors and exclude evaluation of their social benefits and impacts. Santos voted aye.

The three moderate Long Islanders do not always vote the same way.

D’Esposito and Garbarino, for example, voted with 44 other Republicans against a Miller bill to require a probe of whether the FAA's decision to increase the acceptable EKG range for pilots’ heartbeats was based on scientific data. LaLota and Santos voted for it.

Neither Miller nor Santos responded to requests for comment.

The FAA votes did not mark the first time the Long Islanders crossed the aisle on votes.

They and other moderates have pushed back on conservatives' measures several times this year, including by voting for the debt ceiling agreement.

And they drew attention for joining seven other Republicans and all House Democrats to block an amendment to allow congressional review of any federal agency rule that increased access to abortion, making it easier for lawmakers to modify or kill it.

Most moderate

D’Esposito ranks as the fifth-most moderate Republican in Congress, according to UCLA's Voteview.com. Garbarino is the 15th-most moderate. LaLota stands as the 18th-most moderate. Santos was rated as the 123rd-most moderate. 

The ranking is based on “who's voting with who and not at all on what the subject matter is,” said UCLA political science professor Jeffrey Lewis, Voteview.com’s project director. Voteview.com posts the ratings online.

The median House Republican votes with the party 98% of the time, Voteview.com found in rating what it calls party loyalty, based on how often a lawmaker voted like most other party members.

D’Esposito and LaLota vote with the majority of the party 95% of the time and Garbarino 96% of the time, Voteview.com found. Santos, who often breaks from the mainstream to vote with the Freedom Caucus, votes with the party 93% of the time.

Garbarino, D’Esposito and LaLota embrace their ability to work with Democrats. They tout their membership in the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus and the moderate Republican Governance Group, and often recruit Democrats as co-sponsors to their bills.

“I approach legislating solely with my constituents’ best interest in mind and will continue to work with members of both parties,” D'Esposito said in a statement.

“Governing in a slim majority, in a divided government, requires the ability to work across the aisle to get things done,” Garbarino said, “and I’m proud to say I have done so successfully since coming to Congress.”

The difference between the moderate and hard-line conservatives is not as much ideology as it is tactics, according to political scientist Lee.

LaLota agreed. He said his default position is to vote no on amendments that propose important policy initiatives. Those matters, he said, should go through the committee process, with public hearings and constituent feedback instead of amendments tacked onto a bill.

“I would say in addition to there being partisan divides, or even intraparty divides, there's probably a divide between folks who seem to be practical and those who are inherently impractical,” LaLota said.

He cited the willingness of the Problem Solvers Caucus and Republican Governance Group to forge bipartisan legislation, though neither group has launched much legislation this year.

“The work that we do in these groups is practical. It's meant to be productive. It's meant to be reasonable. It's meant to compromise,” LaLota said. “I mean, these are things that some folks in D.C. see as antithetical to their political existence.”

LaLota added, “I think compromise is an OK word. No, you don't compromise your principles. You don't compromise your values. But tactically speaking, you may have to give a little to get a little good.”

Loaded bill

Two weeks ago, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-Brooklyn) called out D’Esposito, LaLota, Santos and others after Republicans approved amendments on fault-line social issues in the must-pass $886 billion National Defense Authorization Act.

LaLota, D'Esposito, Garbarino and Santos voted with their party to block the U.S. Defense Department’s new policy to pay for abortions, provide and fund transgender transitions, and to eliminate existing diversity, equity and inclusion programs and staff. 

Jeffries criticized “the so-called moderates from New York … who do all that they can to project moderation.”

He continued: “Every opportunity they have to show their reasonableness and distance themselves from the most extreme elements of their party, they fail to pass the test.”

LaLota pointed out that federal law already bans the government’s funding of abortions.

He also defended his vote to remove diversity programs from the Defense Department, though he said for any other federal department repeal of those programs should be through legislation after hearings and public debate.

LaLota, citing his experience during 11 years of service in the Navy, said the diversity programs didn't sync well with the military.

"The administration's initiatives in that area I don't think were productive for the military achieving its mission," he said.

The addition of so many House social issue amendments potentially threatens the Senate's passage of the bill.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) brought the NDAA reauthorization to the floor last week, stressing the need for bipartisanship and urging senators from both parties to “defeat potentially toxic amendments.”