In exchange for Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s vote, the Senate-passed reconciliation bill buys time for Alaska and a few other states from some of the toughest cuts to food benefits. That exemption, however, isn’t sitting well with some House Republicans.
“I appreciate she’s defending her state but it should be one size fits all, that’s what I think. I mean, if you’re gonna get a carve for a few states, get it for all 50,” Rep. Don Bacon told NOTUS. “When you do different things to different states, I don’t think that goes over well.”
Some Republicans like Bacon who sit on the Agriculture Committee — which helps write food policy for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — said there needs to be consistency in what gets changed in the bill.
“Carve outs can be useful in some situations, but when you’re talking about a broad spectrum program, then you have to wonder who all should be carved out. When you start carving out, then you start having difficulty with when you stop,” Rep. Jim Baird told NOTUS.
Murkowski, who cast the deciding vote in the Senate on President Donald Trump’s domestic policy bill, was seen as the most “gettable” of the Senate holdouts. Republican leadership engaged in lengthy, down-to-the-wire negotiations to get her vote and she secured several special deals for Alaska in the process.
“Did we make some changes in the SNAP provisions that will allow for a delay, that will allow for greater flexibility to the state? Absolutely,” Murkowski said to reporters shortly after she voted. In a statement, she later called it “one of the hardest votes I have taken during my time in the Senate.”
“While we have worked to improve the present bill for Alaska, it is not good enough for the rest of our nation — and we all know it,” she wrote in a statement on X.
Some Republican members from the “rest of our nation,” though generally supportive of the bill, were concerned about Murkowski’s deal.
“Nice if you can get them, aren’t they?” said Rep. Doug LaMalfa. “I guess it’s OK to ask for them, but receiving them is something else, isn’t it? Because if everybody did that it’d just be complete chaos here.”
“I know people need to advocate for their states and things like that, but big picture here, we’re trying to do what’s right for the country,” Rep. Rick Crawford said.
Special deals are nothing new to Congress; earmarked spending for district projects have long been a popular way to get reluctant members to support a bill. Senator-specific deals are common as well, but it was Murkowski’s acknowledgement that the bill wasn’t great for the rest of the country that made some critics of the bill furious.
“If that’s the new way we’re going to do business around here, ‘I’ll get what I can get from my state and screw the rest of you,’ that’s the way you want to do it? I think that’s kind of a lousy way to legislate,” Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern, a longtime SNAP advocate, told NOTUS. “I mean, I want to help my constituents but I also want to help everybody in this country.”
Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson, the chair of the Agriculture Committee, issued a full-throated defense of Murkowski. He told NOTUS that “Alaska has a challenge, a significant challenge that no other state has in terms of their error rate because of the sheer size and decentralization.”
Thompson readily acknowledged the other states covered by the SNAP carve out received those benefits because the Byrd rule demanded it, and the policy in no small part came to be because passing the Senate demanded Murkowski vote in favor. But he said policy offerings to get votes wasn’t really anything out of the ordinary.
“The United States Congress, it’s always been that way. It’s about negotiations, and sometimes it’s about individuals trying to try to get what they want,” Thompson said. “That’s the give and take of sausage making.”
A common thread with many Republicans on the Agriculture Committee, however, was a respect — for some, perhaps begrudgingly — for how Murkowski went to bat for the state she represents, even if they didn’t love how she did it.
“I raised three children. Every teenager always tries to justify the next morning what they did the day before,” Rep. Frank Lucas told NOTUS.
“Sen. Murkowski, as we would say in Oklahoma, is an exceptionally good horse trader. It seems like she leveraged her leadership to maximum effect for her state. Would any of my other friends do the same thing if they had a chance? I bet they probably would,” he added. “She’s a survivor. You got to give her the credit.”
“I think she did a great job representing her state,” Thompson said.
Even those who seemed tacitly concerned about the carve out tactic said ultimately, she was doing her job.
“I didn’t vote for Lisa Murkowski, but Alaskans did, so it’s on her to do what she thinks is the right thing for her state. Whether I agree with it or not is neither here nor there,” Crawford said.