Last Week In Congress: How Cascadia’s U.S. lawmakers voted (November 18th-22nd)

Good morn­ing! Here’s how Cascadia’s Mem­bers of Con­gress vot­ed on major issues dur­ing the leg­isla­tive week end­ing Fri­day, Novem­ber 22nd.

In the United States House of Representatives

APPROVING AGENCY FUNDING THRU DECEMBER 20TH: Vot­ing 231 for and 192 against, the House on Novem­ber 19th approved stop­gap appro­pri­a­tions (H.R. 3055) to fund the gov­ern­ment at fis­cal 2019 lev­els between Novem­ber 21st and Decem­ber 20th, giv­ing nego­tia­tors more time to seek agree­ment on a reg­u­lar, full-year bud­get for fis­cal 2020, which began about sev­en weeks ago.

One stick­ing point is Pres­i­dent Trump’s request, opposed by Democ­rats, for $9 bil­lion in Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty fund­ing for a bor­der wall. In addi­tion to avert­ing anoth­er fed­er­al gov­ern­ment shut­down, the bill adds mon­ey to ensure a “fair and accu­rate” 2020 Cen­sus, respond to an ebo­la virus out­break in Africa and fund a 3.1 per­cent mil­i­tary pay raise that took effect Octo­ber 1st

Major­i­ty Leader Ste­ny Hoy­er, D‑Maryland, said: “I hope we use these days that are left between today and Decem­ber 20th in a pro­duc­tive, effec­tive way so that the appro­pri­a­tions process can be con­clud­ed on Decem­ber 20th or before.”

Steve Wom­ack, R‑Arkansas, object­ed to increas­ing manda­to­ry spend­ing by $76 bil­lion with­out off­set­ting cuts and expressed doubt that Con­gress “will enact a full-year defense spend­ing bill, which the mil­i­tary so des­per­ate­ly needs right now.”

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

	Vot­ing Aye (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mike Simpson Vot­ing Nay (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Russ Fulcher
	Vot­ing Aye (2): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzanne Bonam­i­ci and Kurt Schrader Vot­ing Nay (3): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Peter DeFazio and Earl Blu­me­nauer; Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Greg Walden
	Vot­ing Aye (8): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, and Den­ny Heck; Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jaime Herrera-Beutler Vot­ing Nay (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Dan New­house and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers

Cas­ca­dia total: 14 aye votes, 3 nay votes

PREVENTING WORKPLACE VIOLENCE AT HOSPITALS, SOCIAL AGENCIES: Vot­ing 251 for and 158 against, the House on Novem­ber 21st passed a bill (H.R. 1309) requir­ing the Depart­ment of Labor to issue a rule designed to reduce work­place vio­lence at med­ical facil­i­ties includ­ing hos­pi­tals, nurs­ing homes and out­pa­tient clin­ics, where attacks occur far more fre­quent­ly than in the over­all work­place, accord­ing to fed­er­al statistics.

The rule would also apply to social ser­vices facil­i­ties includ­ing voca­tion­al-reha­bil­i­ta­tion and child day-care ser­vices and com­mu­ni­ty food and hous­ing agen­cies. The bill defines work­place vio­lence as acts or threats of forcible action that could cause phys­i­cal injury of psy­cho­log­i­cal trau­ma or stress.

The bill directs the Occu­pa­tion­al Health and Safe­ty Agency to put the rule in oper­a­tion with­in two years of enactment.

Mark DeSaulnier, D‑California, said “there is an epi­dem­ic of vio­lence against health­care and social work­ers in the Unit­ed States. Last year, Depart­ment of Labor sta­tis­tics show they were near­ly five times as like­ly to suf­fer a seri­ous work­place vio­lence injury than work­ers in oth­er industries.”

Michael Burgess, R‑Texas, said: “We can all agree that there is a need for OSHA to issue prop­er work­place vio­lence pre­ven­tion reg­u­la­tions,” but object­ed to the expe­dit­ed timetable for putting the rule into effect.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

	Vot­ing Nay (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Mike Simp­son and 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: 15 aye votes, 2 nay votes

FAULTING DEMOCRATS’ LEGISLATIVE PRIORITIES: Vot­ing 222 for and 188 against, the House on Novem­ber 21st effec­tive­ly killed a Repub­li­can motion to HR 1309 (above) assert­ing that House Democ­rats were wrong­ly “pri­or­i­tiz­ing impeach­ment of the pres­i­dent’ over advanc­ing mea­sures to fund the Pen­ta­gon, low­er pre­scrip­tion-drug prices, secure the south­west­ern bor­der and approve the pend­ing Unit­ed States-Mex­i­co-Cana­da Agree­ment on free trade.

On this vote, the House sus­tained a point of order raised by Democ­rats that the Repub­li­can motion was not ger­mane to the sub­stance of bill there­fore out of order.

Joe Court­ney, D‑Connecticut, said: “On behalf of America’s nurs­es, doc­tors and social work­ers, who are beg­ging for relief from unprece­dent­ed lev­els of work­place vio­lence, I insist upon my point of order.”

Mike Kel­ly, R‑Pennsylvania, said Democ­rats were shirk­ing leg­isla­tive oblig­a­tions “while we have wast­ed pre­cious time and mil­lions of hard­work­ing Amer­i­can tax­pay­er dol­lars on a pur­suit of an effort to impeach” Pres­i­dent Trump.

A yes vote was to turn back a non­bind­ing state­ment offered by Republicans.

	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

In the United States Senate

SENDING STOPGAP BILL TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: Vot­ing 74 for and 20 against, the Sen­ate on Novem­ber 21st joined the House (above) in pass­ing a bill (H.R. 3055) that would fund agen­cies on a stop­gap basis from Novem­ber 21st through Decem­ber 20th. In addi­tion to its fund­ing author­i­ty, the bill keeps the Export-Import Bank in oper­a­tion until Decem­ber 20th and extends until March 15th cer­tain For­eign Intel­li­gence Sur­veil­lance Act anti-ter­ror­ism pro­vi­sions that oth­er­wise would expire Decem­ber 15th.

John Cornyn, R‑Texas, said:

“I hope that good faith [bud­get] nego­ti­a­tions can resume and we can fund the remain­der of the fis­cal year by Christ­mas because the last stock­ing stuffer we want to give the Amer­i­can peo­ple is anoth­er gov­ern­ment shutdown.”

No sen­a­tor spoke against the over­all bill.

A yes vote was to send the bill to Don­ald Trump, who signed it into law.

	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

SHIFTING $12 BILLION TO INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS: Vot­ing 73 for and 20 against, the Sen­ate on Novem­ber 21st tabled (killed) an amend­ment to HR 3055 (above) that sought to cut 1 per­cent from fis­cal 2019 agency bud­gets and allo­cate the $12 bil­lion sav­ings to road, bridge and water projects fund­ed by the High­way Trust Fund and Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency. The across-the-board cut would be inflict­ed retroac­tive­ly on all domes­tic, mil­i­tary and for­eign-affairs accounts on the dis­cre­tionary-spend­ing side of the fed­er­al budget.

Patrick Leahy, D‑Vermont, called the pro­posed blan­ket cut “a sim­plis­tic tool that ignores the com­plex­i­ties of our fed­er­al bud­get. It is not a way we should govern.”

Amend­ment spon­sor Rand Paul, R‑Kentucky, said “infra­struc­ture in Amer­i­ca is falling behind. Every­one knows it, but like so many things, Wash­ing­ton can’t fig­ure out how tofind the mon­ey to fix it.” He said his plan “does­n’t increase tax­es and does­n’t increase our debt. The pen­ny plan for infra­struc­ture pays for it with mon­ey we have already allocated.”

A yes vote was to kill the amendment.

	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

Last Week In Congress will be on hiatus next weekend

Con­gress is in Thanks­giv­ing Day recess in the week of Novem­ber 25th.

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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