‘Orwellian’: GOP rift erupts after 57 Republicans work with Dems to protect car ‘kill switch’ plan

Conservatives erupted after dozens of GOP lawmakers rejected an amendment Thursday evening to block funding for a controversial Biden-era vehicle “kill-switch” mandate

GOP privacy hawks warned that failure to block the enforcement of technology that would disable the cars of impaired drivers would grant the government excessive powers over American life. Still, 57 House Republicans joined all but four voting Democrats to tank the amendment in a vote of 164-268.

If the amendment, sponsored by Republican Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, had been successful, the $1.2 trillion spending package that cleared the House overwhelmingly on Thursday would have been prohibited from funding the enforcement of a “kill-switch” mandate.

Massie and other conservative lawmakers have sought for years to roll back a provision within former President Joe Biden’s 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) that would require the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to develop a kill-switch technology for passenger cars. The sweeping infrastructure law passedCongress with bipartisan support.

The IIJA provision calls for the development of impaired driving technology that can “passively monitor the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired” in passenger cars sold after 2026. The vehicle safety standards agency has yet to require or develop a “kill switch” technology.

“The looming Orwellian automobile kill switch deadline threatens civil liberties,” Massie wrote on X Wednesday, using a common phrase to describe totalitarian government control, as described in 20th century author George Orwell’s writings. “When your car shuts down because it doesn’t approve of your driving, how will you appeal your roadside conviction?”

Republican Reps. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Chip Roy of Texas also sponsored the amendment.

“The vehicle ‘kill-switch’ is precisely the kind of overreach that will empower regulatory agencies to manage behavior without votes by elected representatives in Congress or real accountability,” Clyde Wayne Crews, the Fred L. Smith fellow in regulatory studies at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said in a statement.

Still, a group of senior Republicans and those hailing from the moderate faction of the conference helped tank Massie’s amendment.

Republicans who could face difficult reelection bids — Reps. Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin, Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa and Jen Kiggans of Virginia — joined almost all Democrats in rejecting the measure.

Appropriations Committee chairman Tom Cole of Oklahoma, Homeland Security Committee chairman Andrew Garbarino of New York and Financial Services Committee chairman French Hill of Arkansas also voted “no.”

Republican Rep. Wesley Hunt of Texas, a Senate candidate who has come under scrutiny for missing a string of recent votes, did not vote as did Republican Rep. Tom McClintock of California.

Democratic Reps. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, Lou Correa of California and Val Hoyle of Oregon voted for Massie’s amendment.

“Utterly disturbing,” Republican Texas Rep. Keith Self wrote on X following the failed vote on Thursday.

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis described the “kill switch” mandate as ” something you’d expect in Orwell’s 1984″ in a post on X slamming the GOP lawmakers who opposed the amendment.

The unsuccessful push to roll back the Biden-era mandate comes as conservatives have voiced growing frustration over the House Republican conference’s repeated failures to pass legislation favored by the base.

A group of defecting Republicans joined Democrats on Jan. 14 to block amendments that would have defunded an agency with a well-documented history of prejudice against conservatives. A GOP-led effort to slash funding for two federal judges accused of anti-Trump bias also failed after a group of Republicans dissented.

“We’re gutless and we’re compromised and we’re not doing what we said we were going to do,” Republican Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett said in a video Thursday evening.

Former Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who resigned from Congress in January following a falling out with Trump, noted that nearly all Republicans who opposed blocking the “kill switch” mandate have the president’s endorsement.

“But Thomas Massie is baaaddddddd!!!!!” Greene added, in a reference to Trump’s well-known disdain for the libertarian-oriented Kentucky lawmaker.

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