Good morn­ing! Here’s how Cascadia’s Mem­bers of Con­gress vot­ed on major issues dur­ing the leg­isla­tive week end­ing Fri­day, March 6th.

In the United States House of Representatives

The House cham­ber (U.S. Con­gress photo)

APPROVING $8.3 BILLION TO TACKLE CORONAVIRUS: Vot­ing four hun­dred and fif­teen for and two against, the House on March 4th passed a bill (H.R. 6074) that would appro­pri­ate $8.3 bil­lion for pub­lic-health ini­tia­tives to counter the spread of the coro­n­avirus in the Unit­ed States while help­ing the U.S. diplo­mat­ic com­mu­ni­ty cope with the epi­dem­ic overseas.

As emer­gency spend­ing, the out­lay would be added to the nation­al debt.

In part, the bill would:

• pro­vide up to $4 bil­lion for devel­op­ing a vac­cine and diag­nos­tic and ther­a­peu­tic pro­ce­dures and train­ing caregivers;
• $2.2 bil­lion for pre­pared­ness includ­ing the man­u­fac­ture and deliv­ery of test kits, ven­ti­la­tors and respirators;
• $950 mil­lion for addi­tion­al state and local preparedness;
• and unspec­i­fied sums for build­ing surge capac­i­ty at local hos­pi­tals and clin­ics includ­ing com­mu­ni­ty health centers.

The bill also would ensure seniors’ access to Medicare-fund­ed telemed­i­cine ser­vices and sub­si­dize bil­lions of dol­lars in low-inter­est loans to help small busi­ness­es cope with eco­nom­ic loss­es result­ing from the coro­n­avirus out­break. Repub­li­cans Andy Big­gs of Ari­zona and Ken Buck of Col­orado were the only mem­bers of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives vot­ing against the bill.

Fred Upton, R‑Michigan, said the emer­gency fund­ing “is not only going to help our health offi­cials on the front lines — it is going to help our fam­i­lies in vir­tu­al­ly every com­mu­ni­ty. It is also going to help devel­op the vac­cine and the ther­a­peu­tics to save per­haps tens of thou­sands of lives.”

Anoth­er sup­port­er, Nita Lowey, D‑New York, said:

“While the Trump admin­is­tra­tion has repeat­ed­ly demon­strat­ed a fail­ure to under­stand pub­lic health needs, Con­gress is act­ing with the seri­ous­ness and the sense of urgency the coro­n­avirus threat demands.”

No mem­ber spoke against the bill.

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

	Vot­ing Aye (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: 17 aye votes

ADDING AMERICA’S AIRPORT SECURITY WORKERS TO CIVIL SERVICE: Vot­ing 230 for and 171 against, the House on March 5th passed a bill (H.R. 1140) that would include Trans­porta­tion Secu­ri­ty Admin­is­tra­tion (TSA) employ­ees in the civ­il ser­vice per­son­nel sys­tem while grant­i­ng them full col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing rights, paid med­ical and fam­i­ly leave, the right to appeal dis­ci­pli­nary actions to an inde­pen­dent pan­el and oth­er ben­e­fits and job pro­tec­tions avail­able to near­ly all oth­er fed­er­al civil­ian employees.

The TSA was estab­lished in the wake of Sep­tem­ber 11th, and most of its 45,000 employ­ees work as pas­sen­ger screen­ers at airports.

TSA pay lev­els and ben­e­fits, which are set by the agency admin­is­tra­tor rather than “Sched­ule 5” civ­il ser­vice rules, lag behind those for oth­er fed­er­al employ­ees, result­ing in a work­force with high turnover and low morale.

But defend­ers say cur­rent per­son­nel rules enable the agency to adapt quick­ly to chang­ing nation­al-secu­ri­ty threats. Although TSA work­ers are rep­re­sent­ed by the Amer­i­can Fed­er­a­tion of Gov­ern­ment Employ­ees (AFGE), their col­lec­tive-bar­gain­ing rights have been restrict­ed by Congress.

Mary Gay Scan­lon, D‑Pennsylvania, the Vice Chair of the Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee, said under­pay­ing and over­work­ing air­port screen­ers “is a greater threat to nation­al secu­ri­ty than pay­ing a fair wage to keep Amer­i­cans safe… Whether in busi­ness, law or gov­ern­ment, you get what you pay for, and I, for one, do not believe that the secu­ri­ty of our air­ports and skies or the lives of the trav­el­ing pub­lic are some­thing we should be look­ing to get a bar­gain on.”

Deb­bie Lesko, R‑Arizona, said “plac­ing the screen­er work­force under [civ­il ser­vice rules] would tie the agen­cy’s hands relat­ed to nation­al secu­ri­ty pol­i­cy, work­force man­age­ment and col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing. [The bill] amounts to a forced union­iza­tion of the TSA work­force and a forced des­ig­na­tion of the union (the AFGE) that will rep­re­sent that workforce.”

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 (1): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Den­ny Heck Not Vot­ing (9): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, and Adam Smith; Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jaime Her­rera-Beut­ler, Dan New­house, and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers

Cas­ca­dia total: 5 aye votes, 3 nay votes, 9 not voting

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Wash­ing­ton State con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion, with the excep­tion of Den­ny Heck, returned home ear­ly to dis­cuss the coro­n­avirus response with Vice Pres­i­dent Mike Pence and Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee at Camp Mur­ray, which is why they were not present for the vote.

BARRING SEXUAL PREDATORS FROM WORKING IN AIRPORT SCREENING: Vot­ing 227 for and 175 against, the House on March 5th added Repub­li­can-spon­sored lan­guage to HR 1140 (above) that would pro­hib­it the Trans­porta­tion Secu­ri­ty Admin­is­tra­tion (TSA) from hir­ing work­ers with crim­i­nal his­to­ries includ­ing crimes relat­ed to ter­ror­ism and sex­u­al misconduct.

Crit­ics said civ­il ser­vice hir­ing rules already would dis­qual­i­fy such indi­vid­u­als from TSA employ­ment. A yes vote was in sup­port of the Repub­li­can motion.

	Vot­ing Aye (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Mike Simp­son  and Russ Fulcher
	Vot­ing Aye (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Greg Walden and Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Kurt Schrader Vot­ing Nay (3): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Earl Blu­me­nauer and Peter DeFazio
	Vot­ing Nay (1): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Den­ny Heck Not Vot­ing (9): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith; Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jaime Her­rera-Beut­ler, Dan New­house, and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers

Cas­ca­dia total: 4 aye votes, 4 nay votes, 9 not voting

In the United States Senate

The Sen­ate cham­ber (U.S. Con­gress photo)

SENDING CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE PACKAGE TO WHITE HOUSE: Vot­ing nine­ty-six for and one against, the Sen­ate on March 5th joined the House (above) in pass­ing a bill (H.R. 6074) that would appro­pri­ate $8.3 bil­lion for emer­gency fund­ing of fed­er­al, state, local and glob­al efforts to com­bat the coro­n­avirus out­break. Rand Paul, R‑Kentucky, cast the lone dis­sent­ing vote.

In addi­tion to the out­lays cit­ed above, the bill pro­vides $1.3 bil­lion for over­seas ini­tia­tives by the State Depart­ment and U.S. Agency for Inter­na­tion­al Devel­op­ment, includ­ing $264 mil­lion to oper­ate con­sular offices and cov­er evac­u­a­tion costs; $435 mil­lion in con­tri­bu­tions to glob­al health funds; $300 mil­lion for inter­na­tion­al human­i­tar­i­an aid; $250 mil­lion for eco­nom­ic and secu­ri­ty mea­sures in coun­tries desta­bi­lized by the virus; and $1 mil­lion for inspec­tor-gen­er­al over­sight of the gov­ern­men­t’s over­seas coro­n­avirus response.

Patrick Leahy, D‑Vermont., said the bill is “vast­ly dif­fer­ent from the $1.25 bil­lion gross­ly inad­e­quate pro­pos­al from the Trump admin­is­tra­tionthat was so poor­ly thought out that both Repub­li­cans and Democ­rats said it made no sense.”

Anoth­er sup­port­er, Richard Shel­by, R‑Alabama, said the bill “pro­vides a surge in fund­ing at every lev­el — local, state, fed­er­al and inter­na­tion­al — to meet the grow­ing chal­lenge that we face.”

Rand Paul, R‑Kentucky, object­ed to the fact that all spend­ing in the bill would be added to annu­al deficits rather than off­set by cuts else­where in the budget.

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

	Vot­ing Aye (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: 6 aye votes

STARTING DEBATE ON BIPARTISAN ENERGY BILL: The Sen­ate on March 4th vot­ed, nine­ty for and four against, to start debate on a bipar­ti­san bill (S. 2657) that would mar­shal pub­lic and pri­vate resources to upgrade all ener­gy sec­tors of the Amer­i­can econ­o­my. The bill would:

• fur­ther the devel­op­ment of tech­nolo­gies for the cap­ture and under­ground stor­age of emis­sions from indus­tri­al sites and coal-burn­ing pow­er plants;
• pro­mote wind, solar, geot­her­mal and oth­er sources of renew­able energy;
• boost tech­nolo­gies for stock­pil­ing sup­plies of renew­able ener­gy, includ­ing hydropower;
• … and incen­tivize “smart” weath­er­iza­tion tech­nolo­gies to improve the ener­gy effi­cien­cy of com­mer­cial and gov­ern­ment build­ings and schools.

The bill also includes mea­sures to tight­en the secu­ri­ty of the nation’s pow­er grid, reduce depen­dence on for­eign-sup­plied rare min­er­als used to build mil­i­tary weapons and devel­op a more skilled and bet­ter edu­cat­ed ener­gy workforce.

Lisa Murkows­ki, R‑Alaska, called nuclear ener­gy “our nation’s largest and most reli­able source of zero-emis­sion elec­tric­i­ty,” and said the bill would spur devel­op­ment of “advanced reac­tors to help restore our nation­al lead­er­ship and keep our domes­tic [nuclear] indus­try com­pet­i­tive with the likes of Rus­sia and China.”

Anoth­er sup­port­er, Tom Udall, D‑New Mex­i­co, voiced sup­port for cer­tain pro­vi­sions but said the over­all bill fails “to set tar­gets to reduce green­house gas emis­sions to the lev­els required to meet glob­al tar­gets or tran­si­tion us to a clean ener­gy econ­o­my, which is where we need to head, and we need to be head­ing there fast.”

No sen­a­tor spoke against start­ing debate on the bill.

A yes vote was to advance the bill.

	Vot­ing Aye (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: 6 aye votes

Key votes ahead

Next week (March 9th-13th), the House will take up bills that would renew parts of the For­eign Intel­li­gence Sur­veil­lance Act and pro­hib­it Don­ald Trump from clos­ing U.S. bor­ders to trav­el­ers from Mus­lim-major­i­ty coun­tries. The Sen­ate will con­tin­ue to debate S. 2657, the bipar­ti­san ener­gy bill dis­cussed above.

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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