Op-Ed: It’s Time for Rep. Deborah Ross to Co-Sponsor “Block the Bombs”

The Block the Bombs act (officially known as H.R. 3565) was introduced in the United States House over a year ago by Rep. Delia C. Ramirez (D, IL-3). It prohibits the U.S. president from “selling, transferring, or exporting certain defense articles or services to Israel, except in specified circumstances.” 

The Block the Bombs act has been endorsed by Amnesty International, as well as an array of Jewish civil rights groups including Jewish Voice for Peace Action, Rabbis for Ceasefire, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, IfNotNow, and New Jewish Narrative. While the bill doesn’t ban the sales of all arms to Israel, it does detail specific weapons that cannot be sold.

From October 2023 to September 2025, it’s estimated the U.S. government spent $21.7 billion on direct military aid to Israel. This figure does not include the tens of millions of arms sales agreements paid for outside current government budgets. 

Rep. Deborah Ross has served in North Carolina’s 2nd Congressional District, covering various parts of Raleigh and Wake County, since 2021. Rep. Ross has handily won all three of her general elections in the district with an average margin over her Republican opponents of 31%. 

The Cook Political Report describes the 2nd Congressional District as a “Solid Democratic” district and gives the district a “D+17” rating for partisan ideology. This means that in the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections, the district performed about 17 points more Democratic in terms of two-party vote share than the nation did as a whole. Of the 435 districts in the U.S. House, the district ranks as the 77th most safe district for Democrats in the nation by Cook. 

The makeup of Rep. Ross’s district is important to understand in order to put her abstention from the Block the Bombs act into context: Block the Bombs has a relatively large total of 75 co-sponsors in the U.S. House. In recent years, bills introduced in the House have averaged between 19 to 22 co-sponsors. Of these 75 co-sponsors on Block the Bombs, 32 hold House seats that are more vulnerable to a GOP challenger than Rep. Ross’s seat, per Cook Political Report. In other words, Ross has a safer seat than close to half of the act’s current co-sponsors. 

Ross’s absence from this list of co-sponsors stands out in many ways besides just her extremely safe House seat. Of the four Democrats representing North Carolina in this Congress, Ross is one of only two to not sign on to Block the Bombs; the other holdout is Rep. Don Davis. While Rep. Davis’s absence comes as little surprise—he has shown a willingness to work with the Trump administration on Middle East interventionism, including a notable vote with Republicans last week to reject the Lebanon War Powers Resolution—Rep. Alma Adams (N.C.-12) and Rep. Valerie Foushee (N.C.-4) signed Block the Bombs in January 2026 and August 2025, respectively. 

Rep. Ross’s abstention from the Block the Bombs act’s co-sponsor list has been glaring. But with the new state platform of the N.C. Democratic Party ratified just last week, her absence takes on a new light. At its biennial State Convention meeting last month, the North Carolina Democratic Party voted to adopt the ‘international’ plank of its new platform by a vote of 407-89. 

Within this international plank of the party platform, section four states that “we support an immediate embargo on military aid, weapons shipments, and military logistical support to Israel, and we support maintaining that embargo until Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and B’Tselem certify that Israel is no longer engaged in apartheid rule.” Similarly, section seven states, “(We support) Ensuring that United States foreign assistance, military aid, arms sales, weapons transfers, and diplomatic support are consistent with international law, human rights, and opposition to genocide.” 

The call for Rep. Ross to support the Block the Bombs Act is not new. Last August, five members from the North Carolina Democratic Party’s State Executive Council met with Rep. Ross’s Raleigh staff to call on Ross to sign on to the Block the Bombs Act. This request has not yet been answered. 

It’s time for Rep. Ross to bring her position in line with voters across the nation, who, by as much as 75% now, believe that aid to Israel should come to a halt. In a time when the Trump administration is willing to trample on international law and human rights both at home and abroad, Raleigh and Wake County deserve representation that uses our taxes to help the working people of the 2nd Congressional District, not to write blank checks to the Israeli military. 

Reeves Peeler is a Raleigh organizer with NC Dems for Palestinian Lives and a member of the NC Democratic Party’s State Executive Committee. 

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