Good morn­ing! Here’s how Cascadia’s Mem­bers of Con­gress vot­ed on major issues dur­ing the leg­isla­tive week end­ing Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 31st.

In the United States House of Representatives

The House cham­ber (U.S. Con­gress photo)

EXPANDING CONSUMER RIGHTS IN CREDIT REPORTS: Vot­ing 221 for and 189 against, the House on Jan­u­ary 29th passed a bill (H.R. 3621) that would require firms such as Equifax, Exper­ian and Trans Union to adopt cer­tain con­sumer-friend­ly pro­ce­dures in judg­ing the cred­it­wor­thi­ness of the hun­dreds of mil­lions of Amer­i­cans in their portfolios.

Over­seen by the Con­sumer Finan­cial Pro­tec­tion Bureau, the bill would:

• pro­hib­it firms from report­ing on debt incurred for life-sav­ing med­ical treatments;
• delay for one year cred­it report­ing on all oth­er forms of med­ical debt;
• reduce from sev­en to four years the peri­od for retain­ing adverse infor­ma­tion in cred­it reports;
• reduce from ten to sev­en years the dead­line for expung­ing bank­rupt­cy information;
• and pro­hib­it most employ­ers from bas­ing work­place deci­sions on cred­it reports unless they are required by law to do so.

Address­ing stu­dent debt, bill would enable bor­row­ers who are delin­quent or have default­ed on a pri­vate-sec­tor edu­ca­tion loan to repair their cred­it by mak­ing at least nine of 10 con­sec­u­tive month­ly pay­ments on the loan on time.

Once the loan is back on track, cred­it agen­cies would have to remove the episode from the borrower’s his­to­ry. Mil­i­tary per­son­nel deployed to com­bat or per­sons vic­tim­ized by nat­ur­al dis­as­ters dur­ing the ten months could sus­pend and then resume pay­ments with­out fac­ing consequences.

Joyce Beat­ty, D‑Ohio, told col­leagues and C‑SPAN view­ers: “The cur­rent cred­it-report­ing sys­tem is rigged in favor of the cred­it report­ing agen­cies, plain and sim­ple. They have all the pow­er. They are account­able to no one. Ordi­nary Amer­i­can con­sumers are not their cus­tomers but their products.”

Patrick McHen­ry, R‑North Car­oli­na said the bill “pre­vents employ­ers from know­ing the cred­it­wor­thi­ness of employ­ees,” cre­at­ing a sit­u­a­tion “in which employ­ees who are in sig­nif­i­cant debt could be tar­gets of bribes or extor­tion or per­haps take mon­ey that is owed to oth­er people.”

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 (6): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, and Adam Smith Vot­ing Nay (3): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jaime Her­rera-Beut­ler, Dan New­house, and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers Not Vot­ing (1): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Den­ny Heck

Cas­ca­dia total: 10 aye votes, 6 nay votes, 1 not voting

DEFINING MODELS FOR CREDIT SCORES: Vot­ing 201 for and 208 against, the House on Jan­u­ary 29th defeat­ed a Repub­li­can motion that sought to pro­hib­it cred­it reports com­piled under the terms of H.R. 3621 (above) from using mod­els that fac­tor in the indi­vid­u­al’s “polit­i­cal opin­ions, reli­gious expres­sion or oth­er expres­sion pro­tect­ed by the First Amendment.”

The amend­ment would for­bid the Con­sumer Finan­cial Pro­tec­tion Bureau from requir­ing such mod­els even though the agency has no plans to do so.

French Hill, R‑Arkansas, said the con­sumer bureau (which Mick Mul­vaney has vowed to dis­man­tle) “has too much pow­er, and we should make sure that Amer­i­cans do not lose access to cred­it based on the deci­sions of an unac­count­able orga­ni­za­tion” with a “his­to­ry of over­step­ping its bounds.”

Joyce Beat­ty, D‑Ohio, said Repub­li­cans failed to reform abus­es by cred­it-report­ing firms when they con­trolled the House. “There is a new Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty in this Con­gress, and we are act­ing to fix this bro­ken sys­tem,” she said.

A yes vote was to adopt the motion.

	Vot­ing Aye (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Mike Simp­son and Russ Fulcher
	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 (6): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith Not Vot­ing (1): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Den­ny Heck

Cas­ca­dia total: 6 aye votes, 10 nay votes, 1 not voting

ASSERTING CONGRESSIONAL CONTROL OVER WAR WITH IRAN: Vot­ing 228 for and 175 against, the House on Jan­u­ary 30th adopt­ed an amend­ment to H.R. 550 that would deny fund­ing of any U.S. mil­i­tary action against Iran or its proxy forces that lacks con­gres­sion­al autho­riza­tion, except when there is an immi­nent threat to the Unit­ed States, its armed forces or its ter­ri­to­ries. The mea­sure asserts the sole con­sti­tu­tion­al pow­er of Con­gress to declare war as spelled out in the 1973 War Pow­ers Res­o­lu­tion. The pres­i­dent would have to noti­fy Con­gress with­in 48 hours if he mar­shals the U.S. mil­i­tary against Iran, then with­draw the force with­in a spec­i­fied peri­od unless Con­gress votes to autho­rize the action.

Lloyd Doggett, D‑Texas, said Trump “wants sole con­trol over whether our nation is plunged into a war with Iran. Today we say, ‘No, Mr. Pres­i­dent, you are not yet the tyrant that you wish to become. You defied mil­i­tary judg­ment by reject­ing the Iran nuclear agree­ment. You abrupt­ly aban­doned our Kur­dish allies and you’ve tak­en us to the brink of war with an assas­si­na­tion of a for­eign leader with­out any immi­nent threat demon­strat­ed.’ We reject his reck­less and impul­sive esca­la­tion, the end­less blood­shed and the lack of vision beyond pro­mot­ing his own self­ish interests.”

Liz Cheney, R‑Wyoming, said the mea­sure “would call into ques­tion whether the pres­i­dent could defend our clos­est ally in the Mid­dle East — Israel — with­out first get­ting approval from 535 mem­bers of the House and Sen­ate. It would call into ques­tion whether he could pro­tect our diplo­mats in Iraq” and “defend against Iran’s attacks on inter­na­tion­al ship­ping. As the U.S. faces [its] adver­saries, it is absolute­ly crit­i­cal that the pres­i­dent retains the flex­i­bil­i­ty to act swift­ly and deci­sive­ly when our inter­ests or forces are threatened.”

A yes vote was to amend the bill and send it to the Senate.

	Vot­ing Nay (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Russ Fulcher and Mike Simpson
	Vot­ing Aye (3): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Peter DeFazio Vot­ing Nay (2): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Kurt Schrad­er; Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Greg Walden
	Vot­ing Aye (6): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, and Adam Smith Vot­ing Nay (3): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jaime Her­rera-Beut­ler, Dan New­house, and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers Not Vot­ing (1): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Den­ny Heck

Cas­ca­dia total: 9 aye votes, 7 nay votes, 1 not voting

REPEALING IRAQ INVASION AUTHORIZATION RESOLUTION: Vot­ing 236 for and 166 against, the House on Jan­u­ary 30th adopt­ed an amend­ment to H.R. 550 (above) that would repeal the 2002 Iraq inva­sion res­o­lu­tion, which has been cit­ed as the legal basis of U.S. mil­i­tary actions in Iraq and numer­ous oth­er glob­al the­aters over the past eigh­teen years, includ­ing the recent U.S. assas­si­na­tion at the Bagh­dad air­port of Iran­ian Gen­er­al Qasem Soleimani.

Con­gress would have six months to update U.S. war author­i­ty, and until it does so, the pres­i­dent could imme­di­ate­ly deploy forces to pro­tect nation­al secu­ri­ty with­out seek­ing con­gres­sion­al approval. Oppo­nents said the lapse would endan­ger U.S. troops and increase Amer­i­can expo­sure to ter­ror­ist attacks.

Jim McGov­ern, D‑Massachusetts, said: “Tax­pay­er dol­lars have been shov­eled over­seas. Poli­cies have changed from one admin­is­tra­tion to the next. But too often, Con­gress remained silent because we feared the polit­i­cal risk of a vote.”

Scott Per­ry, R‑Pennsylvania, said: “Many of us agree, the [war author­i­ty] needs to be updat­ed. We want to do this cor­rect­ly, but this isn’t the cor­rect way to do it, and we should not aban­don our ser­vice­mem­bers in combat.”

A yes vote was to amend the bill and send it 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, and Adam Smith; Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jaime Herrera-Beutler Vot­ing Nay (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Dan New­house and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers Not Vot­ing (1): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Den­ny Heck

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

In the United States Senate

The Sen­ate cham­ber (U.S. Con­gress photo)

DENYING TRUMP REMOVAL TRIAL WITNESSES: Vot­ing 49 for and 51 against, the Sen­ate on Jan­u­ary 31st defeat­ed a motion to allow votes on sub­poe­nas for wit­ness­es and doc­u­ments in the impeach­ment tri­al of Don­ald Trump.

The only sen­a­tors break­ing par­ty ranks were Repub­li­cans Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Rom­ney of Utah, who vot­ed with Democ­rats in favor of issu­ing sub­poe­nas. The motion did not name poten­tial witnesses.

But Democ­rats said in debate they wished to sub­poe­na, among oth­ers, John Bolton, Trump’s for­mer nation­al secu­ri­ty advis­er, for tes­ti­mo­ny about top­ics includ­ing his report­ed con­ver­sa­tions with the pres­i­dent about Trump’s solic­i­ta­tion of per­son­al polit­i­cal favors from Ukrain­ian offi­cials in return for his release of near­ly $400 mil­lion in U.S. mil­i­tary aid to Ukraine.

Trump defend­ers said the Sen­ate should make its deci­sion on remov­ing him from office based on evi­dence sub­mit­ted by the House.

Rep­re­sent­ing the House, Adam Schiff, D‑California, said: “The facts will come out. In all of their hor­ror, they will come out… The doc­u­ments the pres­i­dent has been hid­ing will come out. The wit­ness­es the pres­i­dent has been con­ceal­ing will tell their sto­ries. And we will be asked why we did not want to hear that infor­ma­tion when we had the chance, when we could con­sid­er its rel­e­vance and impor­tance in mak­ing this most momen­tous decision.”

White House deputy coun­sel Patrick Philbin said: “The Sen­ate is not here to do the inves­ti­ga­to­ry work the House did not do. The reac­tion of this body should be to reject the arti­cles of impeach­ment, not to con­done and put its impri­matur on the way the pro­ceed­ings were han­dled in the House and not to pro­long mat­ters fur­ther to redo work the House failed to do by not seek­ing evi­dence and not doing a fair and legit­i­mate process.”

A yes vote was to allow motions to issue sub­poe­nas for wit­ness­es and documents.

	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

PROHIBITING TESTIMONY BY JOHN BOLTON: Vot­ing 51 for and 49 against, the Sen­ate on Jan­u­ary 31st tabled (killed) a Demo­c­ra­t­ic-spon­sored motion to sub­poe­na John Bolton, the for­mer nation­al secu­ri­ty advis­er to Don­ald Trump, to tes­ti­fy in the pres­i­den­t’s removal trial.

This fol­lowed defeat of a broad­er motion (above) autho­riz­ing the tri­al to sub­poe­na rel­e­vant wit­ness­es and doc­u­ments so far with­held by the pres­i­dent and his defend­ers from House and Sen­ate impeach­ment proceedings.

Bolton, who has said he will tes­ti­fy if sub­poe­naed, has fin­ished a book man­u­script report­ed­ly con­tain­ing first­hand accounts of actions and com­ments by Trump over sev­er­al months in 2019 at the heart of the Democ­rats’ impeach­ment case. This was a par­ty-line vote except that Repub­li­cans Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Rom­ney of Utah vot­ed with Democ­rats in favor of call­ing Bolton to testify.

A yes vote was in oppo­si­tion to call­ing Bolton as a witness.

	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

Key votes ahead

The House will take up dis­as­ter relief for Puer­to Rico and a bill strength­en­ing work­er rights to orga­nize and bar­gain col­lec­tive­ly dur­ing the week of Feb­ru­ary 3rd, while the Sen­ate will con­clude Don­ald Trump’s removal tri­al, hav­ing decid­ed not to hear from any wit­ness­es or sub­poe­na any doc­u­ments. Con­gress will also con­vene in a joint ses­sion for the State of the Union Address.

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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