The House passed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 on Wednesday, sending a sweeping sanctions bill to President Trump's desk, and fulfilling the late senator's final legislative mission.
The vote was 262, 159, with 53 Democrats crossing the aisle to join 203 Republicans in backing the measure, the New York Post reported. Only seven Republicans voted against it. Trump is expected to sign the bill into law.
The legislation authorizes the president to impose tariffs of up to 100 percent on any country that purchases Russian energy, a provision aimed squarely at major buyers like China and India. It also extends sanctions targeting Iran's energy and weapons industries, cutting off two revenue streams that fund aggression abroad.
Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican who led the House floor fight, framed the vote in both strategic and personal terms. McCaul called the bill a tool that "will force" Russian President Vladimir Putin to "the negotiating table" and argued it would keep Putin's ambitions in check, preventing further advances into Eastern Europe.
He then turned to the man whose name the bill carries.
"I can think of no better way... to honor his life and his legacy than by passing these tough sanctions."
McCaul told the House that Graham once called the bill what would be "his great achievement." He described the moment as one Graham himself had anticipated, quoting the late senator's language about a "magic moment" the country could not afford to waste.
Lindsey Graham, the longtime South Carolina Republican and one of Congress's most vocal critics of the Kremlin, died at 71 from an aortic dissection, a torn aorta, following what was described as a brief and sudden illness. He died at his Capitol Hill home the night of July 12, 2026.
The day before, Graham had been in Kyiv. He met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and spoke to reporters afterward, pressing the case for the sanctions package he had championed for months. National Review reported that Graham spent that final Friday securing President Trump's personal blessing for the bill, making it, in effect, his last act of public service.
Preliminary findings pointed to natural causes, though an investigation was opened given Russia's documented history of targeted assassinations. The FBI assisted local authorities in the inquiry.
Graham's death transformed the sanctions bill from a policy debate into a bipartisan cause. His sister, Darline Graham, was appointed to fill his Senate seat and immediately took up the fight.
The Senate had already passed the measure last month by an overwhelming 86, 11 margin. Zelensky himself traveled to Washington to urge passage, meeting with lawmakers and watching an early procedural vote from a seat in the chamber, an unusual gesture that underscored how much Kyiv had riding on the outcome.
Sen. Darline Graham, speaking on the Senate floor, made the case in plain terms, Just the News reported:
"It's time for a show of strength. It's time for action. It's time for the Senate to pass the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026."
The 86, 11 Senate vote demonstrated broad bipartisan support, a rarity in a chamber that struggles to agree on much of anything. The bill advanced just hours after Graham's funeral, a timeline that reflected how urgently both parties wanted to honor his final legislative push.
Wednesday's House vote exposed a fault line inside the Democratic caucus. Fifty-three Democrats voted yes. The rest voted no, and their objections centered less on the sanctions themselves than on the presidential authority the bill grants.
Rep. Don Beyer, a Virginia Democrat, led the opposition. He argued on the House floor that the bill's tariff provisions amount to a blank check.
"President Trump has abused every presidential tariff authority, every single one, that Congress has given often to target our allies."
Beyer warned that the bill contains what he called a loophole allowing Trump to "define basically any country as a facilitator evading Russian sanctions", opening the door, in his view, to tariffs on allied nations under the guise of enforcement.
His fuller objection, as the Washington Examiner reported, went further. Beyer predicted that if the bill passes, "Ukraine's supporters will regret it... when Donald Trump hits our allies with new tariffs and waives sanctions on Russia." He claimed the result would hand Putin "a propaganda victory" embedded in American law.
That argument failed to persuade most of Beyer's own caucus. More than a quarter of House Democrats broke ranks to support the bill. Speaker Mike Johnson, who faced the challenge of holding his Republican conference together against strong Democratic opposition, lost only seven GOP votes, a margin that made the outcome comfortable.
McCaul, in his floor remarks, framed the legislation not just as a tribute to a fallen colleague but as a strategic necessity. He argued the bill would tighten the economic vise on Moscow by targeting the energy revenue that funds Russia's war machine, and would do so by making countries like China and India pay a steep price for continuing to buy Russian oil and gas.
The bill's scope extends beyond Russia. It also targets Iran's energy and weapons programs, cutting off funding streams that support Tehran's proxy networks and nuclear ambitions. Supporters argued this dual focus made the legislation a rare two-for-one in American foreign policy.
McCaul closed with a line that doubled as a eulogy and a call to action:
"Evil is on the march, history is calling, and now is the time to act."
With Trump's backing already secured, the bill now awaits only a presidential signature. When it comes, it will mark the completion of a legislative journey that began with a senator's trip to a war zone and ended with his name on one of the most consequential sanctions packages in a generation.
Lindsey Graham spent his last day alive making the case for this bill. Congress, for once, listened.