Last Week In Congress: How Cascadia’s U.S. lawmakers voted (May 20th-24th)

Good morn­ing! Here’s how Cas­ca­di­a’s Mem­bers of Con­gress vot­ed on major issues dur­ing the leg­isla­tive week end­ing Fri­day, May 24th, 2019.

In the United States House of Representatives

EXPANSION OF WORKER RETIREMENT PLANS: Vot­ing 417 for and 3 against, the House on May 23rd passed a bill (H.R. 1994) that would expand tax-favored retire­ment plans and ben­e­fits. The bill would:

• remove lim­its on con­tri­bu­tions to Indi­vid­ual Retire­ment Accounts;
• increase from 70 ½ to 72 the age at which indi­vid­u­als must start mak­ing annu­al with­drawals from their plans;
• require employ­ers to include in com­pa­ny-spon­sored plans part-time employ­ees with suf­fi­cient work histories;
• qual­i­fy home-health care work­ers to par­tic­i­pate in 401(k)-style plans; allow penal­ty-free ear­ly dis­tri­b­u­tions to cov­er birth and adop­tion expenses;
• expand the use in retire­ment plans of annu­ities offer­ing life­time payments;
• make it eas­i­er for work­ers to take retire­ment accounts with them to new jobs and allow penal­ty-free dis­tri­b­u­tions from Sec­tion 529 col­lege sav­ings plans for appren­tice­ship pro­grams and repay­ing stu­dent loans.

The bill also would pro­vide tax cred­its to encour­age employ­ers to auto­mat­i­cal­ly enroll work­ers in com­pa­ny retire­ment sav­ings plans, as opposed to the cur­rent sys­tem in which work­ers are giv­en an oppor­tu­ni­ty to sign up.

After being auto­mat­i­cal­ly enrolled, work­ers could opt out of the plan. The bill would make it eas­i­er for small busi­ness­es to estab­lish and admin­is­ter mul­ti­ple-employ­er and pooled-employ­er retire­ment plans, and would reduce the pre­mi­ums some char­i­ties and coop­er­a­tives pay to the Pen­sion Ben­e­fit Guar­an­ty Corporation.

Richard Neal, D‑Massachusetts, said the bill is need­ed because “too many peo­ple [are] in dan­ger of not hav­ing enough in retire­ment to main­tain their stan­dard of liv­ing and avoid slid­ing into pover­ty. Social Secu­ri­ty ben­e­fits are mod­est, employ­er-spon­sored pen­sions are dis­ap­pear­ing and too many peo­ple find it dif­fi­cult to save for retire­ment… A 2018 study found that almost two-thirds of work­ers have no retire­ment account assets.”

Kevin Brady, R‑Texas, said the bill “makes it eas­i­er for Main Street busi­ness­es to offer retire­ment plans… to join togeth­er, to pool their resources.…This leg­is­la­tion is pro-work­er and equal­ly impor­tant pro-family.…The time is ripe for these reforms — work­ers’ pay­checks are ris­ing, infla­tion is low and busi­ness­es are expanding.”

No mem­ber spoke against the bill. The neg­a­tive votes were cast by Repub­li­cans Justin Amash of Michi­gan, Thomas Massie of Ken­tucky and Chip Roy of Texas.

A yes vote was to send the bill to the Senate.

	Vot­ing Aye (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Russ Fulcher and Mike Simpson
	Vot­ing Aye (5): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Peter DeFazio, Kurt Schrad­er; Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Greg Walden
	Vot­ing Aye (9): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, and Den­ny Heck; Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Dan New­house and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers Not Vot­ing (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jaime Herrera-Beutler

Cas­ca­dia total: 16 aye votes, 1 not voting

BOYCOTTS, DIVESTITURE, SANCTIONS: Vot­ing 200 for and 222 against, the House on May 23rd defeat­ed a Repub­li­can bid to include a rebuke of the so-called “BDS” move­ment in H.R. 1994 (above). The motion was unre­lat­ed to the bil­l’s pur­pose of expand­ing retire­ment sav­ings. BDS is a glob­al cam­paign by some com­pa­nies and oth­er enti­ties to boy­cott, divest from and sanc­tion Israel and Israeli-owned firms in response to Israel’s treat­ment of Palestinians.

Patrick McHen­ry, R‑North Car­oli­na, said: “Let’s stand up against this anti-Zion­ism and the anti-Semi­tism that under­lies” the BDS movement.

Richard Neal, D‑Massachusetts, urged mem­bers to “set aside this dem­a­goguery and turn down this motion.…”

A yes vote was to adopt the motion.

	Vot­ing Aye (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Russ Fulcher and Mike Simpson
	Vot­ing Aye (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Greg Walden Vot­ing Nay (4): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Peter DeFazio, Kurt Schrader
	Vot­ing Aye (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Dan New­house and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers Vot­ing Nay (7): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, and Den­ny Heck Not Vot­ing (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jaime Herrera-Beutler

Cas­ca­dia total: 5 aye votes, 11 nay votes, 1 not voting

RESTORING CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTIONS: Vot­ing 231 for and 191 against, the House on May 22 passed a Demo­c­ra­t­ic-spon­sored bill (H.R. 1500) that would restore Con­sumer Finan­cial Pro­tec­tion Bureau pow­ers watered down or aban­doned by the Trump admin­is­tra­tion. The bureau was cre­at­ed by the 2010 Dodd-Frank law as an inde­pen­dent agency to pro­tect con­sumers against preda­to­ry prac­tices in mat­ters involv­ing cred­it cards, unse­cured pay­day lend­ing, debt col­lec­tion, mort­gages and auto financ­ing. The admin­is­tra­tion has reined in the bureau by sub­ject­ing it to White House direc­tion, freez­ing its staffing and cut­ting its bud­get while reduc­ing over­sight func­tions and scal­ing back enforce­ment activity.

In part, the bill would:

• restore super­vi­so­ry and enforce­ment pow­ers to the Office of Fair Lend­ing and Equal Opportunity;
• recon­sti­tute an office charged with over­see­ing the stu­dent loan indus­try; increase rank-and-file staff levels;
• elim­i­nate slots cre­at­ed for polit­i­cal appointees;
• resume aggres­sive reg­u­la­tion of pay­day lenders;
• and strength­en enforce­ment of the Mil­i­tary Lend­ing Act, which caps inter­est rates on pay­day and auto loans to mil­i­tary families.
• The mea­sure would also require the bureau to once again pub­li­cize stu­dent loan fees charged by large banks, reopen pub­lic access to a data­base of one mil­lion-plus con­sumer com­plaints, and res­ur­rect and expand the agen­cy’s Con­sumer Advi­so­ry Board.

Lloyd Doggett, D‑Texas, said the bill is need­ed because…

… Repub­li­cans want to shield Wall Street, grant­i­ng it free rein to plun­der. Instead of drain­ing the swamp, this law­less pres­i­dent has drained the Con­sumer Finan­cial Pro­tec­tion Bureau of its strength.

Andy Barr, R‑Kentucky, said the mea­sure is…

… not about con­sumer pro­tec­tion. It is not about putting con­sumers first. It is about pol­i­tics. It is about giv­ing lip ser­vice to pro­tect­ing our ser­vice mem­bers while exclud­ing the nec­es­sary action to actu­al­ly do it.

A yes vote was to send the bill to the Senate.

	Vot­ing Nay (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Russ Fulcher and Mike Simpson
	Vot­ing Aye (4): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Peter DeFazio, Kurt Schrader Vot­ing Nay (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Greg Walden
	Vot­ing Aye (7): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, and Den­ny Heck Vot­ing Nay (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Dan New­house and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers Not Vot­ing (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jaime Herrera-Beutler

Cas­ca­dia total: 11 aye votes, 5 nay votes, 1 not voting

CONGRESSIONAL CONTROL OF BUREAU BUDGET: Vot­ing 192 for and 235 against, the House on May 22nd defeat­ed a Repub­li­can amend­ment to H.R. 1500 (above) that sought to include the Con­sumer Finan­cial Pro­tec­tion Bureau bud­get in the con­gres­sion­al appro­pri­a­tions process, thus giv­ing the House and Sen­ate more con­trol over the inde­pen­dent agency.

The bureau now receives its annu­al bud­get of about $600 mil­lion from the Fed­er­al Reserve with no strings attached. The Fed uses inter­est earned on gov­ern­ment secu­ri­ties in its port­fo­lio as its main fund­ing source.

Amend­ment spon­sor Michael Burgess, R‑Texas, said:

It says pret­ty clear­ly in the Con­sti­tu­tion that no mon­ey may be drawn from the Trea­sury except as an appro­pri­a­tion by the Unit­ed States Congress.

Max­ine Waters, D‑California, said:

Under the guise of the appro­pri­a­tions process, Repub­li­cans are seek­ing to do by amend­ment what they were unable to do for the eight years they were in pow­er — elim­i­nate the Con­sumer Finan­cial Pro­tec­tion Bureau entirely.

A yes vote was to estab­lish con­gres­sion­al con­trol over the bureau’s budget.

	Vot­ing Aye (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Russ Fulcher and Mike Simpson
	Vot­ing Aye (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Greg Walden Vot­ing Nay (4): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Peter DeFazio, Kurt Schrader
	Vot­ing Aye (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Dan New­house and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers Vot­ing Nay (7): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, and Den­ny Heck Not Vot­ing (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jaime Herrera-Beutler

Cas­ca­dia total: 5 aye votes, 11 nay votes, 1 not voting

MANDATORY ARBITRATION V. CONSUMER LAWSUITS: Vot­ing 235 for and 193 against, the House on May 22nd vot­ed to rein­state a Con­sumer Finan­cial Pro­tec­tion Bureau rule that would pro­hib­it finan­cial ser­vices firms from using manda­to­ry arbi­tra­tion claus­es that pre­vent aggriev­ed cus­tomers from join­ing class-action law­suits against the companies.

Manda­to­ry arbi­tra­tion is con­duct­ed by com­pa­ny-approved medi­a­tors under rules that lim­it dis­cov­ery, bar dis­clo­sure of the out­come and pro­hib­it mean­ing­ful appeals. Con­sumers who agree to manda­to­ry arbi­tra­tion for­feit the option of pur­su­ing claims in court. This vote occurred dur­ing debate on H.R. 1500 (above).

Lloyd Doggett, D‑Texas, said: “Arbi­tra­tion is arbi­trary. It does not fair­ly resolve dis­putes. It is biased toward the finan­cial insti­tu­tion…” Patrick McHen­ry, R‑North Car­oli­na, called this “a tri­al lawyer’s dream amend­ment” giv­en the large share of class-action set­tle­ments that goes to the plain­tiffs’ attorneys.

A yes vote was to rein­state a rule bar­ring manda­to­ry arbi­tra­tion claus­es in finan­cial ser­vices contracts.

	Vot­ing Nay (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Russ Fulcher and Mike Simpson
	Vot­ing Aye (4): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Peter DeFazio, Kurt Schrader Vot­ing Nay (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Greg Walden
	Vot­ing Aye (7): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, and Den­ny Heck Vot­ing Nay (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Dan New­house and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers Not Vot­ing (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jaime Herrera-Beutler

Cas­ca­dia total: 11 aye votes, 5 nay votes, 1 not voting

ALLOCATIONS FROM CIVIL PENALTY FUND: Vot­ing 191 for and 231 against, the House on May 22nd defeat­ed a Repub­li­can motion to H.R. 1500 (above) that sought to require dis­burse­ments from the Con­sumer Finan­cial Pro­tec­tion Bureau’s Civ­il Penal­ty Fund to be used only to ben­e­fit vic­tims of finan­cial crimes.

The fund is a depos­i­to­ry for penal­ties the bureau col­lects in enforce­ment actions. Present law per­mits use of the fund to com­pen­sate vic­tims or, when vic­tim pay­ments are not prac­ti­ca­ble, to finance pro­grams that improve finan­cial lit­er­a­cy and con­sumer edu­ca­tion. Back­ers of this mea­sure sought to bar the lat­ter allo­ca­tions, call­ing them a “slush fund.”

Bryan Steil, R‑Wisconsin, said: “Let’s put an end to the slush fund at the bureau. Let’s redi­rect where this mon­ey belongs. Let’s give this mon­ey to the victims.”

Katie Porter, D‑California, said: “The 2008 eco­nom­ic col­lapse cast a long shad­ow. One study …found that sui­cides spurred by evic­tions and fore­clo­sures dou­bled between 2005 and 2010. Those are going to be dif­fi­cult vic­tims to locate.”

A yes vote was to adopt the motion.

	Vot­ing Aye (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Russ Fulcher and Mike Simpson
	Vot­ing Aye (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Greg Walden Vot­ing Nay (4): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Peter DeFazio, Kurt Schrader
	Vot­ing Aye (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Dan New­house and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers Vot­ing Nay (7): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, and Den­ny Heck Not Vot­ing (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jaime Herrera-Beutler

Cas­ca­dia total: 5 aye votes, 11 nay votes, 1 not voting

In the United States Senate

FEDERAL JUDGE DANIEL COLLINS: Vot­ing 53 for and 46 against, the Sen­ate on May 21 con­firmed Daniel P. Collins, an attor­ney in pri­vate prac­tice in Los Ange­les, as a judge on the San Fran­cis­co-based 9th U.S. Cir­cuit Court of Appeals. He held Depart­ment of Jus­tice posi­tions in Wash­ing­ton under Pres­i­dent George W. Bush and spent four years as an assis­tant Unit­ed States Attor­ney for the Cen­tral Dis­trict of California.

Collins drew Demo­c­ra­t­ic oppo­si­tion, in part, for refus­ing to acknowl­edge the exis­tence of cli­mate dam­age and declin­ing to tell sen­a­tors whether he believes the Brown v. Board of Edu­ca­tion 1954 school deseg­re­ga­tion case was cor­rect­ly decid­ed. Democ­rats also found fault with his author­ship of law review arti­cle in 1995 call­ing for the Supreme Court to reverse its 1966 Miran­da v. Ari­zona rul­ing that pro­tects the civ­il lib­er­ties of detained crim­i­nal suspects.

Major­i­ty Leader Mitch McConnell, R‑Kentucky, said Collins…

… has devel­oped a rep­u­ta­tion for legal excel­lence. The Amer­i­can Bar Asso­ci­a­tion rates him well qual­i­fied for this new post.

Dianne Fein­stein, D‑California, said Collins’ record on “repro­duc­tive rights, exec­u­tive pow­er, civ­il lib­er­ties and crim­i­nal jus­tice mat­ters puts him far out­side the judi­cial main­stream,” adding “we can­not have a judge on the 9th Cir­cuit who denies cli­mate change and its impacts.”

A yes vote was to con­firm the nominee.

	Vot­ing Aye (2): Repub­li­can Sen­a­tors Jim Risch and Mike Crapo
	Vot­ing Nay (2): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tors Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley
	Vot­ing Nay (2): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tors Pat­ty Mur­ray & Maria Cantwell

Cas­ca­dia total: 2 aye votes, 4 nay votes

$19.1 BILLION IN DISASTER AID: The Sen­ate on May 23rd approved, 85 for and eight against, $19.1 bil­lion in emer­gency aid to home­own­ers, farm­ers, busi­ness­es, local gov­ern­ments and oth­er enti­ties struck by nat­ur­al dis­as­ters such as wild­fires, flood­ing, hur­ri­canes and tor­na­does in recent years. The bill includes $1.4 bil­lion for Puer­to Rico and $4.5 bil­lion request­ed by the admin­is­tra­tion for secu­ri­ty and human­i­tar­i­an aid on the south­ern border.

A yes vote was to send H.R. 2157 to the House.

	Vot­ing Nay (2): Repub­li­can Sen­a­tors Jim Risch and Mike Crapo
	Vot­ing Aye (2): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tors Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley
	Vot­ing Aye (2): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tors Pat­ty Mur­ray & Maria Cantwell

Cas­ca­dia total: 4 aye votes, 2 nay votes

Last Week In Congress will be on hiatus next week

Con­gress will be in Memo­r­i­al Day recess this week, so there will be not be an install­ment of Last Week In Con­gress next Sunday.

Edi­tor’s Note: The infor­ma­tion in NPI’s week­ly How Cas­ca­di­a’s U.S. law­mak­ers vot­ed fea­ture is pro­vid­ed by Votera­ma in Con­gress, a ser­vice of Thomas Vot­ing Reports. All rights are reserved. Repro­duc­tion of this post is not per­mit­ted, not even with attri­bu­tion. Use the per­ma­nent link to this post to share it… thanks!

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