Democrats Delay Senate Vote to Protect Gay Marriage as GOP Balks

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats decided on Thursday to postpone a planned vote on legislation to provide federal protections for same-sex marriage until after the midterm elections in November, amid dimming hopes of drawing enough Republican support to ensure its passage with tight races on the line.

Senator Tammy Baldwin, Democrat of Wisconsin and the lead sponsor of the Respect for Marriage Act, said that delaying action would increase the chance of getting the 10 Republican votes needed to push it through the evenly divided Senate, where 60 would be necessary to move it forward.

The decision to do so came as a relief to Republicans, the vast majority of whom oppose the measure and were worried that voting against it so close to the elections would alienate voters.

It spared Republican senators in difficult re-election races, including Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Marco Rubio of Florida, a fraught choice of casting a vote that would anger their party’s conservative base or one that could sour independent voters in the closing days of the campaign. The amended legislation would also have to go back to the House, where Representative Ted Budd of North Carolina, who is running for the Senate, would then be forced to vote against it for a second time.

But the delay angered some Democrats who argued that Republicans should be forced to go on the record with their stance.

“We need to vote on equal marriage today,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts. “Every single member of Congress should be willing to go on the record. And if there are Republicans who don’t want to vote on that before the election, I assume it is because they are on the wrong side of history.”

Polls show that a majority of Americans support same-sex marriage, but Republicans are split. At a private lunch with fellow Republicans this week, Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina made the case to his colleagues that it would be politically wise for them to support the measure, according to a Senate aide who described the meeting on the condition of anonymity.

But the turnabout suggested that most Republicans preferred to steer clear of an issue on which their party is split. It was the second time in a week that the G.O.P. had struggled to articulate its position on a major social issue. On Tuesday, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, introduced a federal 15-week abortion ban, reigniting debate on the issue at a time when polls have shown that voters are already alarmed about the demise of abortion rights. Many Republicans distanced themselves, eager to turn the campaign conversation away from a subject that they believe hurts their candidates.

The abrupt change of plans on the marriage bill was the latest surprising turn for the measure, which began as a messaging bill but morphed into a concerted legislative effort after an unexpected number of House Republicans voted for it.

“We’re very confident that the bill will pass,” Ms. Baldwin said on Thursday. “But we will need a little more time.”

Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, had been eager to hold a vote before the elections, even if only to put Republicans on the record voting against a broadly popular position on a social issue. But he deferred to Ms. Baldwin and senators in both parties with whom she had been working to reach a compromise.

“Leader Schumer is extremely disappointed that there aren’t 10 Republicans in the Senate willing to vote yes on marriage equality legislation at this time,” Justin Goodman, Mr. Schumer’s spokesman, said in a statement. He added that Mr. Schumer would “hold the bipartisan group to their promise that the votes to pass this marriage equality legislation will be there after the election.”

The intense legislative push in the Senate began in July, after the House passed the same-sex marriage bill with 47 Republicans voting in favor. At the time, Mr. Schumer said he was encouraged by the amount of G.O.P. support it had garnered, and promised to work to find the necessary votes to move the measure past a filibuster and to a vote.

Ms. Baldwin expressed confidence that she could bring at least 10 Republicans on board, and said that she expected even more to vote in favor of the legislation when it came to the floor.

Democrats have been pressing to enact the legislation after the Supreme Court ruling in June that overturned the nearly 50-year-old right to an abortion, and amid concerns that precedents protecting same-sex marriage rights could be the next to fall.

But the momentum on the issue faded as Democrats spent the final days before the August recess pushing through the Inflation Reduction Act, the core of President Biden’s domestic agenda.

And since returning to Washington last week, Republican senators have expressed concerns about whether the bill would violate the religious liberty of those who do not accept same-sex marriages as valid. The bill would require the government to recognize same-sex marriages, and enshrine marriage equality for the purposes of federal law.

But mostly, the concerns that Democrats heard were political, related to the risks of taking such a vote just weeks before the midterm elections.

Mr. Schumer wanted to move quickly. He briefly floated the idea of linking the marriage equality legislation to a bill to fund the government that must pass by Sept. 30. And aides said Democrats were considering moving as early as Thursday to set up a floor vote next week on the marriage bill.

But Ms. Baldwin demanded more time to find the Republican votes to pass the bill, rather than holding a vote this month in which it would fail at the hands of the G.O.P.

“I think we’re in very good shape,” said Senator Susan Collins of Maine, one of the Republicans involved in the negotiations. “This bill is going to pass. I think we’ve managed to thread the needle on the religious liberty concerns. We’ve taken a lot of input.”

Emily Cochrane contributed reporting.