Last Week In Congress: How Cascadia’s U.S. lawmakers voted (June 1st-5th)

Good morn­ing! Here’s how Cascadia’s Unit­ed States Sen­a­tors vot­ed on major issues dur­ing the leg­isla­tive week end­ing Fri­day, June 5th, 2020.

The House was in recess.

In the United States Senate

CONFIRMING VOICE OF AMERICA CHIEF: Vot­ing 53 for and 38 against, the Sen­ate on June 4th con­firmed con­ser­v­a­tive doc­u­men­tary film­mak­er Michael Pack to lead the U.S. Agency for Glob­al Media, which over­sees the Voice of Amer­i­ca, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia and oth­er ser­vices that report news about Amer­i­ca and glob­al devel­op­ments to for­eign audiences.

Don­ald Trump has repeat­ed­ly crit­i­cized the VOA for its cov­er­age of Chi­na, Rus­sia and his admin­is­tra­tion, prompt­ing Democ­rats to warn that Pack will seek to infuse pro­pa­gan­da into the VOA’s typ­i­cal­ly inde­pen­dent and unbi­ased coverage.

For­mer­ly named the Broad­cast­ing Board of Gov­er­nors, the glob­al media agency has an annu­al bud­get of $750 mil­lion. Pack­’s nom­i­na­tion also proved con­tro­ver­sial over deal­ings between a non­prof­it he runs, Pub­lic Media Lab, and a for-prof­it film com­pa­ny, Man­i­fold Pro­duc­tions, oper­at­ed by his wife.

Democ­rats said in debate the non­prof­it improp­er­ly chan­neled $4 mil­lion over many years to the for-prof­it com­pa­ny in trans­fers he failed to accu­rate­ly report to the Inter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice and lat­er acknowl­edged to be “over­sights.” The office of the Dis­trict of Colum­bia attor­ney gen­er­al office is inves­ti­gat­ing the transactions.

Jim Risch, R‑Idaho, said debate over Pack reflect­ed “the dif­fer­ence of polit­i­cal phi­los­o­phy between the two par­ties. Regard­less of the breast-beat­ing and the rend­ing of gar­ments over what an awful per­son [he] is, and how awful his busi­ness­es have been, keep in mind, this is all pol­i­tics. If you see the kind of work that he has done, he makes Amer­i­ca proud when he makes a documentary.”

Jeff Merkley, D‑Oregon, said Pack’s IRS fil­ings in 2011 through 2018 “did not accu­rate­ly dis­close a rela­tion­ship between his non­prof­it and his for-profit.”

“When he was asked if, in fact, there were com­mon offi­cers between the two, he answered no when the answer was clear­ly yes,” Sen­a­tor Merkley stat­ed. “He did not dis­close that his for-prof­it ben­e­fit­ed from the set­up of the non­prof­it. Mr. Pack did admit to the [Sen­ate] that he made over­sights; that is the term he used, ‘over­sights.’ But he has refused to cor­rect his tax filings.”

A yes vote was to con­firm the nominee.

Cas­ca­dia total: 2 aye votes, 4 nay votes

CONFIRMING CORONAVIRUS INSPECTOR GENERAL: Vot­ing 51 for and 40 against, the Sen­ate on June 2nd con­firmed asso­ciate White House coun­sel Bri­an D. Miller as the chief watch­dog over the admin­is­tra­tion’s dis­tri­b­u­tion of tril­lions of dol­lars in coro­n­avirus relief funds. Demo­c­ra­t­ic Leader Chuck Schumer, D‑New York  said in a let­ter that Miller’s close­ness to Pres­i­dent Trump dis­qual­i­fies him to over­see huge pan­dem­ic expen­di­tures under White House control.

But the Sen­ate con­duct­ed no floor debate on his nom­i­na­tion to become spe­cial inspec­tor gen­er­al for pan­dem­ic recovery.

A yes vote was to con­firm the nominee.

Cas­ca­dia total: 2 aye votes, 4 nay votes

CONFIRMING DEPUTY UNDERSCRETARY AT PENTAGON: Vot­ing 78 for and 18 against, the Sen­ate on June 3rd con­firmed Dr. James H. Ander­son as deputy under­sec­re­tary of defense for pol­i­cy, a civil­ian post that involves help­ing to devise and exe­cute nation­al-secu­ri­ty, nuclear-deter­rence and mis­sile-defense strate­gies, among oth­er duties. He had been an assis­tant defense sec­re­tary over­see­ing sev­er­al areas mil­i­tary policy.

No sen­a­tor spoke in sup­port of Ander­son the Sen­ate floor.

Chris Van Hollen, D‑Maryland, said he vot­ed against the nom­i­nee because of Sec­re­tary of Defense Mark Esper’s com­ment that the U.S. mil­i­tary needs to ”dom­i­nate the bat­tle­space” to quell protests and riot­ing on Amer­i­can streets. Van Hollen said he had “lost con­fi­dence that any nom­i­nee can be trust­ed to stand up to the pres­i­den­t’s attempts to weaponize the Defense Depart­ment for his per­son­al and polit­i­cal ends.”

A yes vote was to con­firm the nominee.

Cas­ca­dia total: 2 aye votes, 4 nay votes

Key votes ahead

In the week of June 8th, the Sen­ate plans to take up a bill renew­ing the Land and Water Con­ser­va­tion Fund, while the House will be in recess.

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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