How many times has Rand Paul voted against specific Israel security aid bills versus placing procedural holds?
Executive summary
Rand Paul’s interventions on U.S. security assistance to Israel fall into two clear tactics documented in reporting: procedural obstruction (holds and parliamentary delays) and substantive roll‑call votes. The record in the provided sources shows multiple well‑publicized procedural holds or blocks (notably in 2018 and procedural delays in 2024) and a smaller, more mixed record of roll‑call votes that at times supported scrutiny of aid and at other times opposed such measures [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6].
1. Procedural holds: repeated use of Senate rules to stop or slow Israel aid
Reporting documents at least three distinct episodes in which Paul used Senate procedures to prevent immediate floor consideration of Israel security assistance: his hold on the US‑Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act (the $38 billion, 10‑year package) reported in 2018 (described as a parliamentary hold) is explicitly documented [1] [2], contemporaneous coverage and summaries note that he “blocked a pair of bills” authorizing tens of billions in that year [3], and more recently he leveraged arcane chamber rules to slow consideration of a $95 billion foreign‑aid package that included tens of billions for Israel in February 2024 [4]. Each of those is a procedural maneuver — holds, blocking motions, or delaying tactics — rather than a direct recorded “no” on a final passage roll call [1] [3] [4].
2. Roll‑call votes: a smaller, mixed set of votes affecting Israel aid
On the substantive roll‑call front, the available reporting shows fewer clear instances of Paul voting directly “no” on final Israel security‑aid appropriations bills; instead, the clearest documented roll‑call is Paul siding with Senator Bernie Sanders on January 17, 2024, to force a procedural resolution that would have required the State Department to report on use of U.S. aid and, if not complied with, could have frozen aid — Paul was the lone Republican to vote with Sanders and nine Democrats on that measure [5]. Other roll calls are more mixed: a December 2024 account shows Paul voting against later Sanders resolutions on the same topic, reflecting a changing stance across separate roll‑call moments [6].
3. Counting intent versus formal votes: the distinction matters
The Congressional Research Service note embedded in the CRS/Library of Congress materials underscores an important technical point: many CRS tables omit procedural votes like holds or cloture and focus on final passage roll calls [7]. That means public tallies of “votes for/against Israel aid” often undercount or mischaracterize a senator’s procedural obstruction. In Paul’s case the sources show multiple procedural blocks that never translated into a single final “no” roll call on the main 2018 authorization bill because he prevented it from reaching a timely floor vote [1] [2] [3] [7].
4. What the numbers in the sources amount to — a conservative tally
Based strictly on the supplied reporting: procedural holds/blocks by Paul are documented at least three times — his 2018 hold on the $38 billion US‑Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act and related 2018 block of bills authorizing large Israel packages (reported as a pair of blocked bills), plus his 2024 use of procedural rules to delay a larger foreign‑aid package that included Israel assistance [1] [2] [3] [4]. Documented substantive roll‑call votes directly tied to pausing or scrutinizing Israel aid include at least one clear vote (Jan 17, 2024 with Sanders) and at least one later vote in which he voted differently on subsequent Sanders measures (Dec 2024), demonstrating he has not uniformly cast recorded “no” votes on every Israel aid question [5] [6].
5. What this record implies and limits of the sources
Taken together, the pattern in the sources is clear: Paul has more frequently used procedural tools to impede or extract attention (holds, blocking, delays) than he has accumulated straightforward roll‑call “no” votes against a final Israel security‑aid bill — the sources document multiple procedural interventions and a smaller, mixed set of roll‑call votes [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]. The available reporting does not provide a comprehensive roll‑call ledger of every relevant vote across all Congresses, and the CRS note warns that procedural actions are often excluded from final vote tables, so a definitive numeric total beyond what is explicitly reported here would require consulting Senate procedural records and roll‑call databases directly [7].