The war with Iran started in February. Congress never voted to authorize it. Five months later, American troops are still dying in it.
On Thursday, July 23, 2026, the House of Representatives voted 214 to 208 to order the president to pull U.S. forces out of the fighting. The resolution — H. Con. Res. 89, written by Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington — passed.
It passed despite 207 Republicans voting against it. Only four Republicans in the entire House voted yes.
185 of the Republicans who voted no have a report card on this site. Their names are below.
What they were voting on
Nothing complicated. The resolution said: the president does not have authorization from Congress for this war, so bring the troops home.
That's not a partisan idea. It's the War Powers Resolution, the law Congress wrote precisely so a president couldn't keep the country in a war on his own indefinitely. Voting yes meant Congress gets a say. Voting no meant the president decides alone.
185 Republicans we track voted for the president deciding alone.
The cost while they stalled
This isn't an abstract fight over process. According to the Pentagon, 18 U.S. troops have died since the fighting broke out in February — and four of those deaths came after July 17 alone. U.S. forces have suffered nearly 500 injuries, 100 of them in the two weeks before this vote.
The fighting is getting worse, not better. And back home, the bill keeps arriving in other forms: gas prices climbed after the Iran war started, squeezing drivers, farmers, and families who never got a vote on any of it.
A majority of Americans oppose military action in Iran. A majority of the House now agrees. The war continues anyway.
Congress already said no in June.
Here's the part that should make you angry.
This was not the first time. On June 3, the House passed an almost identical resolution, H. Con. Res. 86. On June 23, the Senate agreed to that same resolution, 50 to 48.
Both chambers of Congress. The same resolution. Already passed.
The administration ignored it and kept fighting. That's why the House had to vote again on July 23 — and why Rep. Gregory Meeks, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced a resolution that would let him file a lawsuit to enforce the resolution Congress already adopted.
And when the second vote came, the same Republicans lined up the same way. Of the 185 Republicans on this list, 184 voted no both times — in June and again in July. They watched Congress get overruled by the White House, and their response was to vote to be overruled again.
The president, for his part, has called these votes "meaningless" and dismissed them as Democrats "fueled by Trump Derangement Syndrome." When 207 members of his own party vote to make Congress irrelevant, it's hard to argue he's wrong about the "meaningless" part.
The Senate blocked the version with teeth
There's a catch in all of this, and it's worth understanding, because it's how the whole thing gets to keep happening.
H. Con. Res. 89 is a concurrent resolution. As Roll Call explained of the identical June version, it "did not go to the president for his signature and therefore had little power to actually force him to withdraw troops from the war." It's a formal statement, not a binding order.
The binding version came up in the Senate the very same day. Sen. Chris Van Hollen's S.J. Res. 180 was a joint resolution — the kind with legal force. The House finished voting at 10:24 a.m. At 11:51 a.m., about ninety minutes later, the Senate refused to take up the binding version, 47 to 49. Susan Collins of Maine was the only Republican who voted to advance it.
So on one day in July, Congress voted for the version that can't stop the war and voted down the version that could.
Who leads this
Some of the names on this list aren't backbenchers. They're the people who decide what the House does.
Speaker Mike Johnson voted no. So did Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Majority Whip Tom Emmer. The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Brian Mast of Florida, held up photographs of U.S. service members killed in the war during floor debate and said, "To belittle this mission is to belittle and demean the very service these members gave their life for."
That's the argument: because Americans have died, Congress must not be allowed to ask whether they should have been sent. It gets the moral logic exactly backwards. The way you honor a service member's life is by voting before you spend it — not by using their death to shut down the vote.
Jayapal put the other side plainly after the resolution passed: "From the beginning, this war has had no clear mission, no strategy, no end goal. Congress has not been consulted."
Four Republicans managed it
It was possible to vote yes. Four Republicans did: Tom Barrett of Michigan, Warren Davidson of Ohio, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, and Thomas Massie of Kentucky.
Four out of 211. Nobody on the list below can claim there was no room to break ranks — four of their colleagues stood in exactly that room.
The 185 who voted to keep the war going
Every one of these Republicans has a report card on this site, and every one of them is recorded on the official House roll call voting no on ordering U.S. forces out of an unauthorized war:
Alabama — Robert Aderholt, Barry Moore, Gary Palmer, Mike Rogers, Dale Strong
Alaska — Nick Begich
Arizona — Andy Biggs, Juan Ciscomani, Eli Crane, Paul Gosar, Abraham Hamadeh, David Schweikert
Arkansas — Rick Crawford, French Hill, Bruce Westerman, Steve Womack
California — Ken Calvert, Vince Fong, Young Kim, Tom McClintock, Jay Obernolte, David Valadao
Colorado — Lauren Boebert, Jeff Crank, Gabe Evans, Jeff Hurd
Florida — Aaron Bean, Gus Bilirakis, Mario Diaz-Balart, Byron Donalds, Randy Fine, Scott Franklin, Carlos Gimenez, Mike Haridopolos, Laurel Lee, Anna Paulina Luna, Brian Mast, Cory Mills, Jimmy Patronis, John Rutherford, Maria Elvira Salazar, Greg Steube
Georgia — Rick Allen, Andrew Clyde, Mike Collins, Clay Fuller, Brian Jack, Rich McCormick, Austin Scott
Idaho — Russ Fulcher, Mike Simpson
Illinois — Mike Bost, Darin LaHood, Mary Miller
Indiana — Jim Baird, Erin Houchin, Mark Messmer, Jefferson Shreve, Victoria Spartz, Marlin Stutzman, Rudy Yakym
Iowa — Ashley Hinson, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Zach Nunn
Kansas — Ron Estes, Tracey Mann, Derek Schmidt
Kentucky — James Comer, Brett Guthrie, Hal Rogers
Louisiana — Clay Higgins, Mike Johnson, Julia Letlow, Steve Scalise
Maryland — Andy Harris
Michigan — Jack Bergman, Bill Huizenga, John James, Lisa McClain, John Moolenaar, Tim Walberg
Minnesota — Tom Emmer, Brad Finstad, Michelle Fischbach, Pete Stauber
Mississippi — Mike Ezell, Michael Guest, Trent Kelly
Missouri — Mark Alford, Eric Burlison, Bob Onder, Jason Smith, Ann Wagner
Montana — Troy Downing
Nebraska — Mike Flood, Adrian Smith
New Jersey — Chris Smith, Jeff Van Drew
New York — Andrew Garbarino, Nick LaLota, Nick Langworthy, Mike Lawler, Nicole Malliotakis, Claudia Tenney
North Carolina — Chuck Edwards, Virginia Foxx, Pat Harrigan, Mark Harris, Richard Hudson, Brad Knott, Addison McDowell, Tim Moore, Greg Murphy, David Rouzer
North Dakota — Julie Fedorchak
Ohio — Troy Balderson, Mike Carey, Jim Jordan, David Joyce, Bob Latta, Max Miller, Michael Rulli, David Taylor, Mike Turner
Oklahoma — Stephanie Bice, Josh Brecheen, Tom Cole, Kevin Hern, Frank Lucas
Oregon — Cliff Bentz
Pennsylvania — Rob Bresnahan, John Joyce, Mike Kelly, Ryan Mackenzie, Dan Meuser, Scott Perry, Guy Reschenthaler, Lloyd Smucker, Glenn Thompson
South Carolina — Sheri Biggs, Russell Fry, William Timmons, Joe Wilson
Tennessee — Tim Burchett, Scott DesJarlais, Chuck Fleischmann, Diana Harshbarger, David Kustoff, Andy Ogles, Matt Van Epps
Texas — Brian Babin, John Carter, Michael Cloud, Monica De La Cruz, Jake Ellzey, Pat Fallon, Brandon Gill, Craig Goldman, Lance Gooden, Ronny Jackson, Nathaniel Moran, August Pfluger, Keith Self, Pete Sessions, Beth Van Duyne, Randy Weber, Roger Williams
Utah — Mike Kennedy, Celeste Maloy, Blake Moore
Virginia — Ben Cline, Morgan Griffith, Jen Kiggans, John McGuire, Rob Wittman
Washington — Michael Baumgartner
West Virginia — Carol Miller, Riley Moore
Wisconsin — Scott Fitzgerald, Glenn Grothman, Bryan Steil, Tom Tiffany, Derrick Van Orden, Tony Wied
Wyoming — Harriet Hageman
The bottom line
Going to war is the most serious thing a government does. The Constitution deliberately made it hard, and gave the decision to Congress — the branch that has to go home and face the voters.
These 185 Republicans had the simplest possible chance to do that job. Not to end the war on their own, not to overrule the president — just to record that Congress, the branch that represents us, wants the fighting to stop. A majority of their colleagues managed it. Four members of their own party managed it. Both chambers of Congress had already managed it once in June.
They voted no anyway. And they'll vote no again unless something changes.
Eighteen families have buried someone in a war nobody in Congress ever authorized. Nearly 500 more troops have been wounded. When the next vote comes, remember which of your representatives thought the question wasn't worth asking.
We deserve representatives who answer to us — not to a president who calls Congress's votes "meaningless."
How they voted
This post is based on the official congressional roll calls:
- House Roll Call 282 — H. Con. Res. 89, July 23, 2026 (passed 214–208)
- House Roll Call 199 — H. Con. Res. 86, June 3, 2026 (passed 215–208)
- Senate Vote 184 — H. Con. Res. 86, June 23, 2026 (agreed to 50–48)
- Senate Vote 207 — S.J. Res. 180, July 23, 2026 (rejected 47–49)
