South Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar on Thursday voted in support of a Republican-backed bill that defunds colleges and universities that boycott Israeli companies.
The U.S. House passed the Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act (HR 4795) by a 237-169 vote. The proposal would cut off certain federal student aid and funds from universities that engage in commercial boycotts of Israel as part of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
It now heads to the Senate for a vote after the Labor Day weekend.
Though the vote mostly broke down along partisan lines, Cuellar was one of 33 Democrats who joined Republicans to pass the bill. Other Dems, including San Antonio Congressman Joaquin Castro, raised concerns about the bill’s free speech implications and questioned continued U.S. support for Israel’s current government.
“This bill is a bad idea. It tramples on the rights to protect a foreign government from the consequences of its own actions,” Castro said in remarks on the House floor. “The West Bank is currently experiencing its worst year of settler violence ever recorded. Israeli settlers have committed violence, terrorism and many other things against Palestinians, with the goal of driving them out of the land they’ve lived in for generations.”
Israel has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians since a Hamas attack took 1,200 Israeli lives on Oct. 7, 2023, according to Reuters.
“It is an ethnic cleansing,” Castro continued. “America sees this. The world sees this. Yet what is our priority in the House of Representatives right now? Not to stop the violence. Not to stop the displacement. Not to protect the children.”
Cuellar didn’t announce his vote for Thursday’s anti-BDS bill on social media platform X, nor did he issue a press release explaining the reason for his vote. The Current reached out to Cuellar’s office for a statement but didn’t receive one by press time.
However, this is not the first time in recent memory that Cuellar has shown unyielding support for the current Israeli government. In July, Cuellar voted to merge the United States and Israeli militaries as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
The Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act was co-authored by Republican U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina and Democratic U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey.
“Thank you @RepJoshG and @virginiafoxx for leading this important bipartisan effort to counter the dangerous BDS [or Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions] campaign and safeguard academic engagement with Israel,” the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, celebrated on X after the vote.
Despite Cuellar and some others crossing the aisle to support HR 4795, the bill had many detractors within the Democratic Party. They raised concerns about how the bill could chill First Amendment rights on college campuses.
“The bill’s federal requirements raise serious questions about how they would operate in practice, the potential negative effects on institutions, and the extent to which the federal government may condition funding on policies that implicate First Amendment-protected speech,” the House Education and Workforce Committee Democrats wrote in a statement before the vote.
U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat and one of the House’s most senior Jewish members, said in a statement before the vote that he opposed the BDS movement but would vote no because he supported Americans’ right to free expression.
“It is the only way to ensure speech I do agree with is equally protected,” Nadler said.
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