On Thursday evening, the U.S. Senate voted down an amendment to the 2022 Continuing Resolution (CR) that would have defunded vaccine mandates. The vote ultimately passed 47-46 after Senators Mitt Romney (R-UT), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Richard Burr (R-NC) opted not to show up for the vote. The absent Republican senators gave Democrats, who were missing three votes themselves, the narrow majority they needed and ensured mandates would continue to receive funding.

The amendment was put forward by Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and would have defunded President Joe Biden’s remaining vaccine mandates.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) set the vote threshold to a majority, so it remains possible that he could have set the threshold to 60 if Republicans had enough votes to pass with a majority. However, Democrats did back down and opted not to fund Biden’s private employer mandate the last time the U.S. Senate voted on vaccine mandates

A GOP win on this vote could have at the very least, pressured Democrats to vote “no” going forward.

The absent Republican Senators received widespread criticism from Congressional Republicans.