When the House took its final vote in early July on President Donald Trump’s reconciliation bill, only two Republicans opposed the legislation — and only one GOP lawmaker voted against the measure because he thought it went too far: Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick.
To those familiar with Fitzpatrick, a moderate from one of just three districts that went for Kamala Harris and a House Republican in 2024, the vote wasn’t entirely surprising. Fitzpatrick has spent his eight-year tenure trying to strike a balance between fitting in with the Republican Party he belongs to and contrasting himself with it.
To hear Fitzpatrick tell it — in a statement that he has let speak for his decision in the week since the vote — the Medicaid provisions that the Senate inserted into the final version of the bill were just too much for his suburban Philadelphia district to bear. After more than a dozen vulnerable House Republicans expressed firm opposition to the Senate cutting the Medicaid provider tax, with 16 such lawmakers vowing in a letter not to support the overall bill if those cuts were part of the final legislation, all of those Republicans voted “yes” anyway.