The Senate Agriculture Committee failed to advance this year’s farm bill out of committee on Thursday amid Republican absences and unified Democratic opposition to the bill’s food aid provisions. 

The vote failed 10-11 along party lines. Proxy votes from GOP Sens. Tommy Tuberville (Ala.) and Mitch McConnell (Ky.), who were both absent, did not count toward the official vote tally. 

McConnell has been absent from Congress after he suffered a serious fall in June. His office said he was discharged from a rehabilitation center on Thursday and will continue his physical therapy routine from home during the Senate recess period. 

It is unclear why Tuberville missed the vote. The Hill has reached out to the senator’s office for comment. 

The farm bill is a sprawling agriculture and food aid package normally passed every five years. Congress has not passed a farm bill since 2018. The House passed its latest version in April.

The panel’s chair, Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.), announced that he would reconvene the committee when the Senate returned from recess in September to reconsider the package. 

In a statement shared on social media after the vote, Boozman said he was “deeply disappointed” by the Democratic lawmakers who voted against the bill.

Democrats on the panel have pushed back against a provision in the bill that would require states to help cover the cost of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funding, demanding that the implementation date be delayed by two years to allow states to reduce SNAP error rates.

Boozman has offered a one-year delay, but the panel’s Democrats said this was not enough time. 

“This debate was about the FARM BILL, not protecting the mismanagement of billions of dollars in food aid,” the chair said in his statement. “I remain committed to working with those who put our farmers and rural communities first on advancing solutions that strengthen agriculture.”

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), the ranking member on the committee, said in a statement after the vote that she remains “committed” to working with Boozman on this legislation. 

The Democrat has said that the farm bill would unfairly reward states with high SNAP error rates while penalizing states with mid-level error rates. 

“A state with an error rate twice that of Minnesota will pay nothing in the second year, whereas states that have reduced their error rates will still be disadvantaged over high error rate states,” the Minnesota Democrat said in a statement on social media.

“Our members are simply asking for the two-year delay so all states will be on the same footing in working to reduce their error rates,” Klobuchar continued. “That is ten percent of the total SNAP cuts.”