This article has been updated.
Faced with a looming debt ceiling deadline in politically divided Washington, an unusual coalition of U.S. House members from both parties joined together to pass a plan to raise the debt limit and set new spending caps.
Among the 165 Democrats and 149 Republicans who advanced a compromise between Republican leaders, who control the House, and President Joe Biden on Wednesday night was just one member of San Antonio’s five-member Congressional delegation.
U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Democrat who represents Texas’ 28th Congressional district and narrowly survived a primary runoff against progressive Jessica Cisneros last year, cast the lone supporting vote.
Opposing the measure were 71 Republicans, including U.S. Reps. Chip Roy, a conservative firebrand, and Tony Gonzales, who is better-known for seeking compromise. Reps. Greg Casar and Joaquin Castro, both from the progressive wing, joined 46 Democrats in opposing the measure.
June 5 is the date cited by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on which the U.S. government would no longer be able to pay its bills unless it could borrow more.
The Senate passed the measure Thursday night.
As the local Congressional delegation has grown increasingly partisan amid redistricting in recent years, here’s how three San Antonio lawmakers used their leadership roles to drive the national conversation in very different directions.
Henry Cuellar
Cuellar, whose district stretches from Bexar County to his home base of Laredo, is known for his moderate politics, frequently splitting with his party on issues related to oil and gas and the border with Mexico.
While that reputation has earned him well-funded primary threats in his past two reelection races, Cuellar’s ability to forge relationships across the aisle has also made him a key ally of Democratic leadership, which has leaned on him to find supporters for major victories like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill.
Wednesday’s debt ceiling deal was no exception.
Cuellar, who’s one of 10 House Democratic chief deputy whips, told the San Antonio Report that he urged White House negotiators to pursue a deal that would lean on support from both parties’ moderates. That included some elements progressives in his party dislike, such as changes to work requirements for SNAP benefits, in order to bring Republicans down from their proposed $130 billion spending cuts.
“One of the things that I wanted to make sure that the negotiators understood was when there is a far right and far left argument, that they will be supported in the middle,” Cuellar said. “I’m talking about both Democrats and Republicans.”
As a member of the House Appropriations Committee, Cuellar said he has had a longstanding relationship with the Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young, who previously served as the committee’s staff director.
“Part of my role was to relay, ‘Hey, we’re good on this. We’re good on that,'” Cuellar said of his job ensuring enough lawmakers would vote for the final deal.
Cuellar said fellow House budget writers must now revisit some of their spending bills to account for cuts that are smaller than what House Republican leaders had hoped and planned for.
Greg Casar
Casar is a former Austin councilman who won his seat in 2022 in a bright blue district that stretches from south Austin to San Antonio. He serves as whip for the 102-member House Progressive Caucus, which pushed Democratic leaders to raise the debt ceiling last December, before the new GOP majority took over.
“Progressives’ role since day one has been to try to avoid default,” Casar said.
In spite of that, Casar and Castro were among 46 Democrats who voted against the bill Wednesday.
“We’ve been in the room trying to protect against the worst things,” Casar said before the vote. “So you’re going to see some progressives vote yes to avoid default … and a significant number of progressives, including myself, voting no to make it very clear: The entire economy shouldn’t be held hostage in the first place.”
The White House first negotiated a deal with House Republicans, then brought in members of the president’s own party, according to Politico.
Casar said his biggest concern about the final product was SNAP changes, which would require people ages 50 to 54 to work full time in order to receive the food aid benefits. Cuellar said Democrats’ negotiators decided that wasn’t an unreasonable ask, though progressives disagree.
“Not everybody may know exactly how that [benefit] works,” Casar said. “Older San Antonians who work part-time get $2 per meal assistance so they can afford food at H-E-B. The Republican Party took the American economy hostage to take those $2 away. That’s nuts.”
If approved, that change would impact roughly 700,000 Americans who currently receive the benefits, Casar’s office said.
The changes would go into effect immediately for people who are 50 years old, in October 2024 for people ages 51 to 52, and October 2025 for people ages 53 to 54.
Chip Roy
Rep. Chip Roy, who served as chief of staff to Sen. Ted Cruz during the 2013 government shutdown, was perhaps the most visible player in the debt ceiling debate.
Roy was elected in 2019 to a Hill County district that’s since been reshaped to heavily favor Republicans. He’s been a consistent agitator against House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy and is a leader in the House Freedom Caucus, which rejected the compromise with the White House and sought to allow default.
Speaking on the House floor Wednesday night, Roy said the debt ceiling was the GOP’s best negotiating tool for reeling in elements of the Biden administration Republicans have been unhappy with.
“To my colleagues on this side of the aisle … my beef is that you cut a deal that shouldn’t have been cut,” Roy said.
Republican leaders secured cuts to some of the planned funding boost for the IRS. The bill also clawed back some unspent pandemic relief.
Roy said neither of those moves went far enough, and approving the debt ceiling deal marks “the loss of our biggest leverage points to force Biden to actually secure the southern border.”
