Wittman wants to fund the National Endowment for Democracy

Votes with senior GOP members, as a minority of their party

Yesterday, Wittman voted with 81 other Republicans and all Democrats to defeat an amendment that would have defunded the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Many, like Elon Musk, want NED to die because democracy is...bad, we guess...? So why did Wittman not vote with the majority of his party?

The 81 Republicans were mostly senior members with committee gavels, military backgrounds, or defense‑heavy districts - people just like Wittman. This gave him political cover. He protected his committee leadership status and avoided confrontation with the folks who write bills important to VA-01.

NED is a vestige of Reagan’s “soft power” approach to foreign relations, and Wittman aligns with the traditional GOP neocon hawks on this. Perhaps Wittman believes that NED’s work can prevent future deployments of US personnel. (If so, we might ask why he hasn’t spoken up on Venezuela.)

Wittman rarely goes against the majority in his party. It’s important to note that he voted with the majority of the GOP’s senior members and protected his committee assignments. So while this is a better vote from Wittman than we might have otherwise feared, it isn’t exactly a demonstration of brave legislating.

In our view, at this time it’s too much to hope that this vote demonstrates a growing willingness among Republicans in Congress to push back against the excesses of the Trump Executive Branch. But we’ll continue watching!