The 12 House Republicans Who Voted Against the Tax Bill

(Bloomberg) -- The House passed a tax overhaul Tuesday in a 227-203 vote that stayed mostly along party lines, except for the 12 Republicans voting no.

So who are the Republican rebels? Here’s a breakdown the names, a look at these members’ districts, and why they bucked the tax bill.

New York and New Jersey

Most of the 14 House Republicans from New York and New Jersey opposed the Republican tax bill, largely because their constituents would be adversely affected by a $10,000 cap on state and local tax, or SALT, deductions.

• Dan Donovan: Donovan, who represents Staten Island and part of Brooklyn, sought to maintain the SALT deduction for families earning less than $400,000 per year and phasing it out for higher-income earners
• John Faso: A freshman from a politically competitive Hudson Valley district, Faso said the bill’s positives, including preserving the medical expense deduction and the tax exemption for interest paid on so-called private activity bonds, weren’t enough to overcome his "overwhelming concern with the state and local income tax deduction"
• Rodney Frelinghuysen: Frelinghuysen, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, is for the first time in his career facing serious Democratic opposition in a district that includes most of Morris County, New Jersey
• Peter King: King represents parts of Nassau and Suffolk Counties on Long Island
• Leonard Lance: Lance represents an upper-income district in north-central New Jersey that narrowly backed Hillary Clinton in 2016 over President Donald Trump, when Lance won the primary and the general election with 54 percent of the vote; Lance said he wanted full deductibility of state and local taxes
• Frank LoBiondo: LoBiondo, a moderate not seeking re-election in 2018, praised the final product for retaining deductions for medical and educational expenses but said the $10,000 SALT cap "will be detrimental in my high-tax state of New Jersey"
• Chris Smith: The dean of the New Jersey congressional delegation represents a Republican-leaning district in parts of Mercer, Monmouth and Ocean Counties
• Elise Stefanik: Stefanik, who’s in her second term representing upstate New York’s North Country, said the "failure to maintain SALT could lead to more families leaving our region"
• Lee Zeldin: Zeldin, who represents eastern Long Island, said Dec. 15 the $10,000 SALT cap was insufficient and the bill "remains a geographic redistribution of wealth, taking extra money from a place like New York to pay for deeper tax cuts elsewhere"

California Swing Districts

Despite being from a high-tax state, only two of California’s 14 House Republicans bucked leadership to oppose the measure. Worth noting on that front is that the leader of the delegation, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, is one of the tax bill’s biggest champions.

The two California Republicans who opposed it are:

• Darrell Issa: His district in parts of San Diego and Orange Counties backed Clinton in 2016, when Issa was re-elected by less than 1 percentage point; changes to a tax bill the House passed last month "do not go far enough to guarantee tax relief for constituents in my district," Issa said Dec. 15
• Dana Rohrabacher: Rohrabacher is a top target of Democrats in a coastal Orange County district that backed Clinton over Trump

Walter Jones

• Walter Jones of North Carolina, an independent-minded conservative who sometimes opposes GOP leaders on big votes, is concerned the proposal will exacerbate the national debt. Jones is one of the few true deficit hawks (as opposed to spending hawks who cite the deficit as a reason) in the 115th Congress. He is listed here, as often in the House, in his own category altogether

To contact the reporters on this story: Greg Giroux in Washington at ggiroux@bloomberg.net, Greg Sullivan in Washington at gsullivan32@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Derek Wallbank at dwallbank@bloomberg.net, Elizabeth Titus

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