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On Thursday, a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives voted to remove a provision from the 2026 Farm Bill that would have protected pesticide makers from some lawsuits over potential health risks caused by their products. The amendment was pushed by GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, and Democrats and the Make America Healthy Again wing of the Republican Party joined to support it. Only six Democrats voted against stripping the lawsuit protections, while 73 Republicans voted in favor, handing Luna’s measure a 280-142 victory.
The Farm Bill itself then passed 224-200. It now goes to the Senate.
After the vote, Arizona GOP Rep. Abe Hamadeh retweeted an account that shared a list of all the Republican votes in favor of the amendment. “Make sure your member is on it,” the account wrote. Hamadeh was listed, as were several other Republicans in the state’s congressional delegation. But two — indeed, the two most high-profile, considering they’re both running for governor — were not:
Reps. David Schweikert and Andy Biggs.
Schweikert, who is trying to woo traditional Republicans and independents in a gubernatorial campaign that appears to be flagging financially, was the lone Arizona Republican to vote against the amendment. Biggs, who has made no secret of attempting to curry favor with the MAHA movement as he cements his frontrunner status in the GOP primary, did not cast a vote.
In an email to Phoenix New Times, Biggs spokesperson Drew Sexton said Biggs missed the vote because he flew home from Washington, D.C., on Thursday morning “to deal with a personal family matter.” Sexton said that Biggs cosponsored a previous, similar amendment pushed by Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie “and would have voted for the Luna amendment on Thursday morning.”
Schweikert’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Luna’s amendment specifically concerned labeling for the chemical glyphosate found in the herbicide Roundup, which is manufactured by chemical giant Bayer. Lawsuits have claimed that glyphosate causes cancer, and Bayer and other companies have previously been found liable for not warning about that risk. In 2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer said the chemical is “probably carcinogenic to humans.”
The Environmental Protection Agency has not gone so far. The agency does not classify the chemical as a carcinogen and doesn’t require manufacturers to warn about it on labels. Without the Luna amendment, the Farm Bill would have prevented states and local jurisdictions from requiring that kind of labeling when the EPA did not also require it, and would have prevented courts from finding manufacturers liable over that specific issue. That language has now been removed, so state and cities can require additional warning labels on pesticides if they so choose.
Schweikert does not appear to have weighed in on the glyphosate issue before. However, Biggs’ stated support for glyphosate immunity is something of a turnaround. In 2017, he demanded that the WHO’s cancer agency testify in front of Congress over its findings that the chemical is carcinogenic, threatening to pull the agency’s federal funding if it didn’t play ball. Since then, though, the MAHA movement has latched onto glyphosate as a pet issue.
Sexton said MAHA leaders “absolutely understand (Biggs’) support for MAHA policies is unwavering.” On Friday morning, Biggs again pumped his MAHA credentials. “I’ve been MAHA my whole life,” he tweeted, “and I’ll continue as Governor.”
