Last Week In Congress: How Cascadia’s U.S. lawmakers voted (September 23rd-27th)

Good morn­ing! Here’s how Cas­ca­di­a’s Mem­bers of Con­gress vot­ed on major issues dur­ing the leg­isla­tive week end­ing Fri­day, Sep­tem­ber 27th, 2019.

In the United States House of Representatives

PROVIDING WHISTLEBLOWER COMPLAINT TO CONGRESS: Vot­ing 421 for and none against, the House on Sep­tem­ber 25th called upon Joseph Maguire, the act­ing direc­tor of nation­al intel­li­gence, to pro­vide the appro­pri­ate con­gres­sion­al com­mit­tees with a whistle­blow­ers com­plaint alleg­ing mis­con­duct by Don­ald Trump cen­tered on his inter­ac­tions this year with the Ukrain­ian government.

When this vote occurred, adopt­ing House Res­o­lu­tion 576, the admin­is­tra­tion already had sent the com­plaint to Capi­tol Hill after hav­ing sequestered it from law­mak­ers since late August. The Sen­ate adopt­ed an iden­ti­cal dis­clo­sure res­o­lu­tion on a voice vote (no roll call was taken).

Speak­er Nan­cy Pelosi, D‑California, said:

“Our nation­al secu­ri­ty depends on this [whistle­blow­er] frame­work. This vote today is about more than just any one pres­i­dent. This res­o­lu­tion is about the preser­va­tion of our Amer­i­can sys­tem of government.”

Minor­i­ty Whip Steve Scalise, R‑La., vot­ed for the res­o­lu­tion but said of Democ­rats: “Instead of mov­ing on, they keep going down the impeach­ment path. Peo­ple are sick and tired of the con­stant harass­ment of the president.”

A yes vote backed release of the whistle­blow­er’s com­plaint to Congress.

	Vot­ing Aye (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Russ Fulcher and Mike Simpson
	Vot­ing Aye (5): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Peter DeFazio, and Kurt Schrad­er; Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Greg Walden
	Vot­ing Aye (10): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, and Den­ny Heck; Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jaime Her­rera-Beut­ler, Dan New­house, and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers

Cas­ca­dia total: 17 aye votes

BLOCKING REPUBLICAN MEASURE ON IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY: Vot­ing 232 for and 193 against, the House on Sep­tem­ber 25th blocked a Repub­li­can attempt to force con­sid­er­a­tion of a res­o­lu­tion (House Res­o­lu­tion 590) dis­ap­prov­ing of Speak­er Nan­cy Pelosi’s deci­sion to begin a for­mal impeach­ment inquiry against Don­ald Trump. Pelosi, D‑California, had announced the inquiry the day before, bas­ing it, in part, on Trump hav­ing asked the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment to pro­duce dam­ag­ing infor­ma­tion about for­mer Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden, a poten­tial Demo­c­ra­t­ic oppo­nent of his in the 2020 pres­i­den­tial election.

This res­o­lu­tion was quashed by a par­lia­men­tary rul­ing that it did not qual­i­fy as a “priv­i­leged ques­tion” enti­tled to floor action under House rules. On the vote being report­ed here, Democ­rats upheld that rul­ing after it was appealed by Repub­li­cans. As a priv­i­leged res­o­lu­tion, the mea­sure was not debatable.

A yes vote was in oppo­si­tion to allow­ing debate on the GOP resolution.

	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 (3): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jaime Her­rera-Beut­ler, Dan New­house, and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers

Cas­ca­dia total: 11 aye votes, 6 nay votes

LIMITING SEPARATION OF MIGRANT CHILDREN AND PARENTS: Vot­ing 230 for and 194 against, the House on Sep­tem­ber 25th passed a bill (H.R. 2203) that would impose stricter require­ments for the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty’s treat­ment of migrant fam­i­lies, includ­ing a ban on remov­ing chil­dren from par­ents or guardians with­in 100 miles of the U.S.-Mexico bor­der except by court order. When a sep­a­ra­tion is ordered, the Depart­ment must elec­tron­i­cal­ly track of the loca­tion of the dis­lo­cat­ed fam­i­ly members.

The bill would:

• cre­ate a DHS ombuds­man­’s office for receiv­ing and act­ing on com­plaints relat­ed to immi­gra­tion prac­tices includ­ing the abuse of migrants;
• improve the train­ing of U.S. Cus­toms and Bor­der Pro­tec­tion (CBP) offi­cers for deal­ing with vul­ner­a­ble populations;
• pro­vide Con­gress with a plan for requir­ing immi­gra­tion offi­cers to wear body cam­eras and estab­lish an inde­pen­dent com­mis­sion to inves­ti­gate and make a pub­lic account­ing of the Trump regime’s treat­ment of migrant fam­i­lies at and near the bor­der since Jan­u­ary 2017.

In addi­tion, the bill would reverse Trump admin­is­tra­tion poli­cies designed to dis­suade immi­grants from Mex­i­co and the North­ern Tri­an­gle coun­ties of El Sal­vador, Guatemala and Hon­duras from seek­ing asy­lum in the Unit­ed States.

Sylvia Gar­cia, D‑Texas, said: “Our Amer­i­can val­ues, moral con­science and Con­sti­tu­tion require that we treat all indi­vid­u­als on Amer­i­can soil humane­ly and respect­ful­ly. This bill helps ensure that that happens.”

Mike Rogers, R‑Alabama, said: “All this bill does is waste tax­pay­ers dol­lars on a duplica­tive new [ombuds­man­’s] office designed to demor­al­ize law enforce­ment and serve the demands of ille­gal immigrants.”

	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 (3): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jaime Her­rera-Beut­ler, Dan New­house, and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers

Cas­ca­dia total: 11 aye votes, 6 nay votes

REPORTING CRIME IN SANCTUARY CITIES: Vot­ing 207 for and 216 against, the House on Sep­tem­ber 25 defeat­ed a bid by Repub­li­cans to allow vic­tims of crimes by undoc­u­ment­ed immi­grants in sanc­tu­ary cities to report the inci­dent to the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty ombuds­man­’s office that would be cre­at­ed by H.R. 2203 (above). More than 400 munic­i­pal­i­ties nation­wide are known as sanc­tu­ary cities because they decline to coop­er­ate with fed­er­al immi­gra­tion enforce­ment on grounds it would dis­rupt their com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing efforts.

Spon­sor Mark Green, R‑Tennessee, said his amend­ment would allow vic­tims and their fam­i­lies an oppor­tu­ni­ty to be heard by pol­i­cy­mak­ers in Con­gress and by the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty. “Why would we not let the vic­tims be heard?”

Veron­i­ca Esco­bar, D‑Texas, said Green com­plete­ly missed the point of the office of the ombuds­man, say­ing: “An ombuds­man is sup­posed to be focused on over­sight relat­ed to the inner work­ings of the depart­ment, not on exter­nal pol­i­cy issues.”

A yes vote was to adopt the Repub­li­can 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, and Kurt Schrader
	Vot­ing Aye (3): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jaime Her­rera-Beut­ler, 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

Cas­ca­dia total: 6 aye votes, 11 nay votes

NULLIFYING TRUMP BORDER EMERGENCY: Vot­ing 236 for and 174 against, the House on Sep­tem­ber 27th adopt­ed a mea­sure (Sen­ate Joint Res­o­lu­tion 54) that would nul­li­fy a fake nation­al emer­gency Don­ald Trump declared on the south­west bor­der over immi­gra­tion concerns.

Trump has used the Feb­ru­ary 15th dec­la­ra­tion as author­i­ty for divert­ing $3.6 bil­lion appro­pri­at­ed for mil­i­tary con­struc­tion at bases domes­ti­cal­ly and over­seas to a non-mil­i­tary account for build­ing 175 miles of bor­der barriers.

If Trump vetoes the mea­sure as he is expect­ed to do, two-thirds major­i­ty votes in both cham­bers would be required for an override.

Joaquin Cas­tro, D‑Texas, said it was “a dis­grace that mon­ey is being stolen from over two dozen states and ter­ri­to­ries, ensur­ing that Amer­i­can tax­pay­ers, not Mex­i­co as the pres­i­dent repeat­ed­ly promised, are actu­al­ly pay­ing for the wall.”

Ross Spano, R‑Florida, said: “When are Democ­rats going to get seri­ous about secur­ing our bor­der? […[ My con­stituents did not elect me to stand by silent­ly as we tran­si­tion to open bor­ders in this coun­try and I will not.”

A yes vote was to send the res­o­lu­tion to the president.

	Vot­ing Nay (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 Jaime Her­rera-Beut­ler and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers Vot­ing Nay (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Dan Newhouse

Cas­ca­dia total: 14 aye votes, 3 nay votes

MEDICAL SCREENING OF UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS: Vot­ing 230 for and 184 against, the House on Sep­tem­ber 26th passed a bill (HR 3525) that would require U.S. Cus­toms and Bor­der Pro­tec­tion to con­duct med­ical screen­ings with­in twelve hours of undoc­u­ment­ed immi­grants appre­hend­ed on the south­west bor­der and estab­lish an elec­tron­ic data­base that all rel­e­vant Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty depart­ments could use to track their med­ical histories.

These require­ments do not apply to migrants legal­ly seek­ing U.S. asy­lum at ports of entry because their med­ical care is main­ly han­dled by oth­er agencies.

Under this bill, vul­ner­a­ble groups includ­ing chil­dren would receive pri­or­i­ty care and pedi­atric med­ical experts would be assigned to each of the nine Cus­toms and Bor­der Pro­tec­tion sec­tors in the south­west. Lau­ren Under­wood, D‑Illinois, said elec­tron­ic record­keep­ing for undoc­u­ment­ed migrants is need­ed because “when I was at the bor­der, I saw busy, over­worked Bor­der Patrol offi­cials hav­ing to keep health records on paper. I also saw how these records dont always fol­low migrants between facil­i­ties and trans­fers of custody.”

Jim Banks, R‑Indiana, said the bill “would require the Bor­der Patrol to divert resources from its core mis­sion of pro­tect­ing our nations bor­ders and cre­ate a new med­ical screen­ing sys­tem for those who ille­gal­ly cross and enter the coun­try between ports of entry. I believe every part of that is wrongheaded.”

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 (3): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jaime Her­rera-Beut­ler, Dan New­house, and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers

Cas­ca­dia total: 11 aye votes, 6 nay votes

GIVING HEALTH-RECORDS PREFERENCE TO VETERANS: Vot­ing 202 for and 213 against, the House on Sep­tem­ber 26th defeat­ed a Repub­li­can motion that sought to give vet­er­ans pre­ferred access to an elec­tron­ic health-records sys­tem that would be estab­lished by H.R. 3525 (above) in the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty for track­ing med­ical his­to­ries of new­ly arrived undoc­u­ment­ed immi­grants, par­tic­u­lar­ly chil­dren and those with seri­ous illnesses.

Mark Green, R‑Tennessee, said con­stituents would find it appalling that “we are about to give this health record sys­tem to ille­gal immi­grants before our vet­er­ans receive it.”

Major­i­ty Leader Ste­ny Hoy­er, D‑Maryland, called the motion the gim­mick of gim­micks. “It does noth­ing for vet­er­ans health­care, not a sin­gle thing,” Hoy­er said in remarks on the House floor. “You know it. I know it. Every­body in this House knows it. All it does is try to delay this bill for ten years.”

A yes vote was to adopt the Repub­li­can motion.

	Vot­ing Aye (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Russ Fulcher and Mike Simpson
	Vot­ing Aye (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Greg Walden; Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Kurt Schrader Vot­ing Nay (3): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Earl Blu­me­nauer, and Peter DeFazio
	Vot­ing Aye (3): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jaime Her­rera-Beut­ler, 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

Cas­ca­dia total: 7 aye votes, 10 nay votes

OPENING FEDERAL BANKING SYSTEM TO MARIJUANA FIRMS: Vot­ing 321 for and 103 against, the House on Sep­tem­ber 25th passed a bill (H.R. 1595) that would per­mit cannabis-relat­ed busi­ness­es to use fed­er­al­ly reg­u­lat­ed banks and cred­it unions in states where mar­i­jua­na usage has been legalized.

Mar­i­jua­na, a prod­uct of cannabis, is a pro­hib­it­ed sub­stance under fed­er­al law but allowed for recre­ation­al or med­i­c­i­nal use in a major­i­ty of the states (includ­ing Wash­ing­ton), the Dis­trict of Colum­bia and four U.S. territories.

Cannabis-relat­ed firms usu­al­ly are forced to deal in cash because the Fed­er­al Deposit Insur­ance Cor­po­ra­tion and the Nation­al Cred­it Union Admin­is­tra­tion pro­hib­it finan­cial insti­tu­tions from accept­ing their deposits. The bill also would allow the indus­tri­al hemp indus­try and firms that sup­port cannabis-based busi­ness­es to use the fed­er­al bank­ing sys­tem with­out fear of reprisal.

Ed Perl­mut­ter, D‑Colorado, said the bill would…

“… help law enforce­ment root out ille­gal trans­ac­tions to pre­vent tax eva­sion, mon­ey laun­der­ing and oth­er white-col­lar crime. Most impor­tant­ly, this will also reduce the risk of vio­lent crime in our communities.”

David Kustoff, R‑Tennessee, said that with this bill, “We are vot­ing to nation­al­ly legal­ize mar­i­jua­na through­out our bank­ing sys­tem rather than tak­ing a direct vote to legal­ize what is cur­rent­ly an ille­gal substance.”

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

	Vot­ing Aye (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mike Simspon Vot­ing Nay (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Russ Fulcher
	Vot­ing Aye (5): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Peter DeFazio, Kurt Schrad­er; Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Greg Walden
	Vot­ing Aye (10): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, and Den­ny Heck; Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jaime Her­rera-Beut­ler, Dan New­house, and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers

Cas­ca­dia total: 16 aye votes, 1 nay vote

In the United States Senate

PASSING STOPGAP FUNDING THRU NOVEMBER 21ST: Vot­ing 81 for and 16 against, the Sen­ate on Sep­tem­ber 26th passed a con­tin­u­ing res­o­lu­tion (H.R. 4378) to pro­vide stop­gap appro­pri­a­tions for the first sev­en weeks of fis­cal 2020, which starts Octo­ber 1st. Avert­ing a gov­ern­ment shut­down, the bill would fund agen­cies at 2019 lev­els while giv­ing nego­tia­tors time to reach agree­ment on reg­u­lar appro­pri­a­tions bills for the 2020 bud­get year.

A yes vote was to send the bill to Don­ald Trump.

	Vot­ing Aye (1): Repub­li­can Sen­a­tor Mike Crapo Vot­ing Nay (1): Repub­li­can Sen­a­tor Jim Risch
	Vot­ing Aye (2): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tors Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley
	Vot­ing Aye (2): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tors Maria Cantwell and Pat­ty Murray

Cas­ca­dia total: 5 aye votes, 1 nay vote

NULLIFYING TRUMP BORDER EMERGENCY: Vot­ing 54 for and 41 against, the Sen­ate on Sep­tem­ber 25th sent the House a mea­sure (Sen­ate Joint Res­o­lu­tion 54) that would nul­li­fy a nation­al emer­gency Don­ald Trump declared Feb­ru­ary 15th on the U.S.-Mexico bor­der (see House issue above) as a back­door means of obtain­ing funds for wall con­struc­tion that Con­gress has declined to appro­pri­ate. The pres­i­dent has used the emer­gency dec­la­ra­tion to divert $3.6 bil­lion from mil­i­tary-con­struc­tion projects to his wall project.

Minor­i­ty Leader Chuck Schumer, D‑N.Y., said the bill pro­vides “the surest and like­ly the only way to restore fund­ing the Pres­i­dent has stolen from our troops and mil­i­tary projects across the coun­try. Pres­i­dent Trump promised Mex­i­co would pay for the wall, not Amer­i­can tax­pay­ers, and cer­tain­ly not the mil­i­tary — the men and women and their fam­i­lies involved in keep­ing our nation secure.”

No sen­a­tor spoke against the res­o­lu­tion. A yes vote was to send the res­o­lu­tion to the House, where it was approved and sent to Trump.

	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 Maria Cantwell and Pat­ty Murray

Cas­ca­dia total: 4 aye votes, 2 nay votes

EUGENE SCALIA, SECRETARY OF LABOR: Vot­ing 53 for and 44 against, the Sen­ate on Sep­tem­ber 26th con­firmed Eugene Scalia to be Sec­re­tary of the Depart­ment of Labor. Scalia, the son of deceased Supreme Court Jus­tice Antonin Scalia, has been employed in a Wash­ing­ton law firm with a spe­cial­ty of rep­re­sent­ing cor­po­ra­tions in labor-man­age­ment disputes.

Back­ers said he occa­sion­al­ly took the side of unions while serv­ing as the depart­men­t’s chief attor­ney under Pres­i­dent George W. Bush.

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 Maria Cantwell and Pat­ty Murray

Cas­ca­dia total: 2 aye votes, 4 nay votes

LWIC will be on hiatus for two weeks

The House and Sen­ate are in recess until the week of Octo­ber 14th, so there will be no fur­ther install­ments of Last Week In Con­gress until mid-October.

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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