Multiple Republicans on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee said that they will not support moving the Antisemitism Awareness Act forward in its current form after Democrats and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) voted to add controversial amendments to the bill in a committee meeting on Wednesday.

“Rand Paul totally killed that bill,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) told Jewish Insider, offering an unequivocal “no” when asked if he would still support the legislation.

The votes on advancing the bill and a second campus antisemitism-related bill out of committee was postponed after the amendment process ran out the two-hour time limit on the committee meeting.

“There were some really bad amendments added, in my opinion,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said. “Certainly the fact that the final vote was canceled is unfortunate. I’ve got to tell you, I thought those two bills were going to fly through without trouble.”

Collins, who was chairing another Senate hearing for most of the HELP meeting, voted by proxy for two amendments.

Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) had harbored concerns about the legislation potentially infringing upon free speech rights, but had worked with Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), the committee’s chair, to add language more explicitly stating the preexisting protections in the legislation for First Amendment-protected speech and religion.

“These amendments are dealbreakers,” Marshall told JI.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) said that the legislation cannot move forward as currently amended, and called the amendments a “waste of time.”

Sen. Ashley Moody (R-FL) said that “a lot of us want to pass that act, it’s incredibly important. It’s a priority of so many of ours.” She added, “some of those amendments that were being offered by Democrats were abhorrent.”

The approved amendments included one by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) stating that it is not antisemitic to use free speech rights to oppose the war in Gaza, and laying out a series of Sanders’ specific objections to the war and criticisms of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. All Democrats and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) voted in favor. An amendment led by Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) would oppose the revocations of visas, detentions and deportations of students and faculty based on “protected conduct under the First Amendment.”

Additional amendments, also led by Sanders, reinforced the right to protest and distribute materials on campus — as long as the speech does not constitute threats or incitement — and barred the federal government from enforcing policy that would “compel” schools to “violate the rights of a student, faculty, or staff member under the First Amendment.”

Cassidy said after the markup that he remains committed to moving the legislation forward.

In order to revive the legislation in the upper chamber, lawmakers would either need to find a procedural workaround to bring the bill to the floor and strip out the amendments, wait for the House to pass the legislation first or incorporate it into a larger package.

But if the legislation does come to the Senate floor, scenes from Wednesday’s contentious markup would likely be repeated, on a larger stage.

Jewish Insider’s congressional correspondent Emily Jacobs contributed reporting.