Congress has successfully gotten their super-majority vote to override Trumps veto. The NDAA now heads to the senate.
Last week, outgoing president, Donald “60 Court Losses” Trump used his veto pen to defund the military. The veto was in response to lawmakers refusing to repeal Section 230, the critical Internet free speech law that protects platforms of all shapes and sizes from many forms of unneccessary liability.
The move sent the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) back to Congress. As some speculated on whether Congress could muster enough votes to get a supermajority, members of the military industries expressed frustration over the situation. The AIA (Aerospace Industries Association) said that the veto puts America’s national security at risk. This put added pressure for lawmakers to override Trump’s veto.
Now, we are learning where the vote went for the NDAA. Congress has managed to obtain the supermajority it needs to override Trump’s veto. From CNBC:
The House voted Monday to override President Donald Trump’s veto of an annual defense spending bill, placing the final steps of defying the Republican president in the hands of the GOP-led Senate.
The measure to override Trump’s veto of the defense bill passed 322 to 87 on Monday evening. The Senate will vote next on whether to override the veto.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said his chamber would vote on overriding the veto Tuesday.
The bill, known as the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, passed the House on Dec. 8. with the support of more than three-fourths of the chamber. A large majority of the GOP-controlled Senate also approved the bill, giving both chambers a higher share of yea votes than the two-thirds required to defeat a presidential veto.
The news is likely bad for Lindsey Graham who openly said that he would choose Trump over the military and not vote to override Trump’s veto. At any rate, it is looking more promising that the NDAA is going to pass after some doubts were raised earlier by some sources.
While the development puts another nail in the coffin for Trump’s efforts to gut Section 230, it’s not exactly an outright win for digital rights. As we pointed out earlier, Democrats managed to get the CASE Act and a felony streaming bill into the NDAA. Both pieces of legislation have digital rights advocates seriously concerned about the possible damage the NDAA could bring to digital rights. The former bill being the bill that implements so-called “copyright courts” that circumvents the normal judicial process. The latter bill ups streamed copyright infringement from a civil offense to a criminal offense.
If there was any hopes that these bills would get removed from the NDAA, today’s developments puts new doubts into those hopes as well. With the NDAA seemingly destined to pass at this point, the question some may be wondering is how this can be reversed after both make it into the law books.
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Facebook.
