House GOP leadership quietly scrapped a vote on a bipartisan bill criminalizing anti-Israel boycotts after several prominent conservative lawmakers alleged that the legislation infringed on the First Amendment.
The International Governmental Organization (IGO) Anti-Boycott Act, sponsored by Republican New York Rep. Mike Lawler and Democratic New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer, would prohibit Americans from supporting boycotts imposed by global entities against U.S. allies, including Israel. Some conservative GOP House members slammed the legislation, which was initially scheduled for floor consideration Monday, citing Americans’ First Amendment rights to boycott and criticize allied countries, while condemning anti-semitism.
“Americans have the right to boycott, and penalizing this risks free speech,” Republican Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna posted on X Sunday. “I reject and vehemently condemn antisemitism but I cannot violate the first amendment.”
Lawler and Gottheimer’s bill would amend the Anti-Boycott Act of 2018 to expand its authority to also prevent Americans or U.S. businesses from participating in boycotts organized by international entities — including the United Nations (UN) and European Union (EU). The bipartisan 2018 legislation originally sought to penalize foreign governments from imposing boycotts on allied countries. President Donald Trump signed the bill into law during his first term as part of the fiscal year 2019 National Defense Authorization Act.
Lawler defended his bill in a series of X posts Sunday, arguing that the United States should not tolerate certain international entities’ boycotts against allied countries, including Israel.
The New York Republican has previously called out the the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, an international campaign that seeks to politically and economically isolate Israel by demanding entities boycott and divest from Israeli companies and sanction the country over alleged human rights abuses against Palestinians.
“This bill closes a critical loophole by ensuring that international organizations cannot enable harmful BDS efforts,” Lawler wrote in a January press release announcing the bill’s reintroduction. His legislation previously passed the House by voice vote during the 118th Congress, but was not taken up in the Senate under former Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s leadership.
A group of House conservatives, led by Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, torched the new legislation for violating Americans’ First Amendment rights.
“It is my job to defend American’s [sic] rights to buy or boycott whomever they choose without the government harshly fining them or imprisoning them,” Greene posted on X Sunday afternoon.
Greene also criticized House GOP leadership for planning to bring Lawler’s bill to the floor instead of focusing on passing the president’s executive orders. Greene’s Gulf of America Act of 2025, which would codify the president’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico, is expected to receive a vote later this week, according to House Majority Leader Steve Scalise.
Lawler justified his legislation in a reply to the Georgia congresswoman, citing the need to target coordinated international efforts seeking to isolate Israel.
“Who knew you were such a fan of defending the UN,” Lawler wrote on X in response to Greene’s tweet.
Other conservative House Republicans also came out against the bill prior to House GOP leadership pulling the legislation from floor consideration.
“It was a ridiculous bill that our leadership should have never scheduled for a vote,” Republican Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie wrote on X Sunday.
Massie, who has previously broken with his party on other speech-related bills, was the lone House lawmaker to vote against a resolution condemning anti-semitism in May 2024. He argued that Congress should not be voting on resolutions to “legislate thought.”
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