The progress of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) through Congress highlights a recent development within the GOP generally.  Amidst the party’s civil war for its identity and future, once sheepish moderate Republicans are becoming more willing to stand up against the unpopular ideological purity espoused by the party’s hard-right.

On November 7, the Senate voted 61to 30 to pass ENDA; of the 61 yea votes, 10 came from Republicans.  In a superficial sense, this could be unremarkable given the historical precedent: when the Senate failed to pass a version of ENDA in 1996, 8 Republicans joined Democrats in voting yea.  But the Senate Republicans who voted for ENDA in 2013 are a very different group than those who voted yea in 1996.  First, not a single one of the latter group are still in office.  Second, three senators who voted against the measure in 1996 – John McCain, Orrin Hatch, and Lisa Murkowski – decided to vote yea on November 7.  Finally, many of the Republicans who voted yea in 2013 represent more conservative to moderate states than their 1996 counterparts, especially Orrin Hatch of Utah, John McCain of Arizona, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, and Rob Portman of Ohio.

This shift can be seen as reaction to recent support for LGBT rights (especially for employment nondiscrimination), even among Republican voters.  A Gallup poll conducted less than a week before the 2013 vote found that 63% of Americans would vote for a referendum instituting a national ban on sexual orientation/gender identity-based job discrimination.  That same poll pointed to an interesting discrepancy  between Republican senators and Republican voters.  Only 23% of Republican senators voted to pass ENDA this past November, whereas 58% of Republican voters would vote for such a law were it put to a national referendum.  While this demonstrates that GOP social conservatives still vastly outnumber moderates and libertarians in Congress, the November 7 vote indicates there are enough moderate Republican senators to join with even a slim Democratic majority to pass pro-LGBT legislation in the future.

Having passed the Senate, it now falls to the House to vote on ENDA; here, too, party faction continues.  House Speaker John Boehner announced through a spokesperson that he was opposed to ENDA, and that the Republican-dominated House may not even bring the bill up for a vote.  This is in contrast to many Republican representatives who have signed onto the proposed House version of ENDA, which currently has 193 supporters in total.  Many of these moderate Republicans, like Pennsylvania’s Charlie Dent and Florida’s Illena Ros-Lehtinen, also voted for the 2011 repeal of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy.

While moderate voices have clearly begun to reemerge within the GOP regarding ENDA and a number of issues, it is unclear what if any long-term change these members will affect on the conservative majority of their party and future Republican platforms.  In the mean time, there appears to be enough moderates in both houses to join Democrats in passing pro-LGBT legislation aimed at discrimination based on sexual orientation.

(This post’s sources can be found at the  hyperlinked sections of text which reference them).