Three Democrats Who Died This Year Would Have Sunk Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’
The deaths of Gerry Connolly, Sylvester Turner, and Raul Grijalva, and their impact on Trump’s sprawling spending plan, have reignited fears about an aging Democratic Party.
The Daily Beast/Getty
President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” spending bill squeaked through the House on Thursday morning in a in a 215–214 vote.
Two Republicans, Reps. Thomas Massie and Warren Davidson—voted against it. GOP Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland, chair of the hardline House Freedom Caucus, voted “present,” and two other Republicans, Reps. Andrew Garbarino and David Schweikert, missed the vote.
All of the House Democrats voted against Trump’s sprawling spending plan, but they were missing three congressmen who could have sunk the bill’s passage Thursday.
Just a day before the vote, the family of Rep. Gerry Connolly confirmed the Virginia Democrat had died at age 75, weeks after announcing his esophageal cancer had returned. Connolly had first revealed his diagnosis shortly after winning re-election last November.
Gerry Connolly died of esophageal cancer on Wednesday.
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
His passage was the third in a string of Democratic deaths in the House over the past three months, following the deaths of Rep. Sylvester Turner, 70, and Rep. Raúl Grijalva, 77, in March.
Had all three been alive and voting as expected, the bill would have failed by a vote of 217–215.
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Of course, other factors come into play when imagining a scenario where Connolly, Turner, and Grijalva were still present for Thursday’s vote.
Sylvester Turner, 70, died in March, just two months into his congressional career.
Melissa Phillip/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images
In the frantic days leading up to the vote, several House Republicans threatened to oppose the bill over issues like the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap, only to ultimately fall in line.
It’s impossible to say whether Massie, Davidson, and Harris would have still withheld support if they didn’t believe the bill could prevail without them.
Still, Connolly’s death has reignited concerns about the Democratic Party being run by a gerontocracy, with few signs of the generational change needed wake of the party’s crushing defeat in the 2024 election.
Arizona's Raul Grijalva, who had been in office since 2003, also died in March. He was 77.
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Speaking on the Daily Beast Podcast, veteran political strategist James Carville said the Democrats are struggling with their current image as they try to seek new voters.
“When you ask people about the Democratic Party, they say they’re old and they’re coastal. That’s the image of the party,” Carville said. “Focus group after focus group after piece of research, after everything. Trust me, when people say ‘the Democratic Party,’ a huge number of them say ‘they’re old.’”
Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein, a longtime critic of the aging Democratic leadership, wrote after Connolly’s death about how “harmful” it is “not just to the public, but to the politicians themselves, when we let them debase themselves by clinging to power and spending their final days in that miserable chamber instead of with their families.”
“We the people deserve better. But so do they,” Klippenstein added in his blog.
The Democratic Party faced a backlash in December 2024 after choosing then-74-year-old Connolly as the ranking member of the powerful House Oversight Committee over 35-year-old Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Connolly was elected to the role just weeks after revealing his cancer diagnosis, prompting Rep. Don Beyer, 74, to defend him as a “young 74, cancer notwithstanding.”
A report from Axios also found that more than half of House Democrats who are 75 and older plan to seek re=election next year—including Rep. Maxine Waters, 86; Rep. John Garamendi, 80; and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, 82.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if a third of our members have primaries, because that’s the energy that’s out there,” one frustrated House Democrat told Axios, referring to older lawmakers refusing to step aside.
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