Good morn­ing! Here’s how Cascadia’s Mem­bers of Con­gress vot­ed on major issues dur­ing the leg­isla­tive week end­ing Fri­day, July 24th.

In the United States House of Representatives

The House cham­ber (U.S. Con­gress photo)

REMOVING CONFEDERATE STATUES FROM CAPITOL: Vot­ing 305 for and 113 against, the House on July 22nd passed a bill (H.R. 7573) that would remove from the Capi­tol build­ing a bust of for­mer Supreme Court Chief Jus­tice Roger B. Taney, the author of the Dred Scott v. Sand­ford rul­ing in 1857 that African-Amer­i­cans could not be cit­i­zens of the Unit­ed States or sue in fed­er­al courts.

The bill also would ban­ish from the Capi­tol the stat­ues or busts of Con­fed­er­ate and/or pro-slav­ery lead­ers includ­ing Gen. Robert E. Lee, the Con­fed­er­ate com­man­der; Jef­fer­son Davis, the Con­fed­er­a­cy pres­i­dent and a U.S. sen­a­tor and House mem­ber; John C. Cal­houn of South Car­oli­na, a U.S. vice pres­i­dent and sen­a­tor; John C. Breck­en­ridge of Ken­tucky, a U.S. vice pres­i­dent and Con­fed­er­ate war sec­re­tary; for­mer North Car­oli­na Gov­er­nor Charles B. Aycock, and for­mer Arkansas gov­er­nor and U.S. sen­a­tor James P. Clarke.

Under the bill, the Taney bust on the Sen­ate side of the Capi­tol would be replaced with one of Thur­good Mar­shall, the first African-Amer­i­can Supreme Court jus­tice. All removals would have to occur with­in forty-five or one hun­dred and twen­ty days and the stat­ues would be returned to their donor states.

James Clyburn, D‑South Car­oli­na, said: “I am not for destroy­ing any statue.…Put them where they can be studied.…But do not hon­or [these indi­vid­u­als]. Do not glo­ri­fy them. Take them out of this great school­house so that the peo­ple who vis­it here can be uplift­ed by what this coun­try is all about.”

Tom McClin­tock, R‑California, said: “If we remove memo­ri­als to every per­son in this build­ing who ever made a bad deci­sion… this will be a very bar­ren place, indeed. It is only by the bad things in our his­to­ry that we can tru­ly mea­sure all of the good things in our history.”

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

	Vot­ing Aye (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mike Simpson Vot­ing Nay (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Russ Fulcher
	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: 16 aye votes, 1 nay vote

APPROVING $741 BILLION FOR MILITARY IN 2021: Vot­ing 295 for and 125 against, the House on July 21st approved a $741 bil­lion mil­i­tary bud­get (HR 6395) for fis­cal 2021 that includes $60 bil­lion-plus for active-duty and retiree health care, a $1 bil­lion fund for deal­ing with present and future pan­demics and hun­dreds of bil­lions for weapons sys­tems and per­son­nel costs.

In addi­tion, the bill would:

• require Con­fed­er­ate names to be removed from U.S. bases with­in one year;
• pro­hib­it pub­lic dis­play of the Con­fed­er­ate flag on mil­i­tary property;
• treat cli­mate dam­age as a nation­al secu­ri­ty threat;
• com­bat for­eign inter­fer­ence in U.S. elections;
• fund a three per­cent pay raise for uni­formed personnel;
• expand pro­grams for mil­i­tary vic­tims of sex­u­al assault;
• require a Pen­ta­gon report on alleged Russ­ian boun­ty pay­ments for the killing of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and pro­vide Ukraine with $250 mil­lion for defend­ing itself against Russ­ian belligerence.

The bill would add a “vio­lent extrem­ism” arti­cle cov­er­ing hate crimes and oth­er offens­es to the Uni­form Code of Mil­i­tary Jus­tice, and install an inspec­tor gen­er­al to probe white suprema­cist activ­i­ties in the armed forces and review racial and eth­nic dis­par­i­ties in the admin­is­tra­tion of mil­i­tary justice.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

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

Cas­ca­dia total: 12 aye votes, 5 nay votes

PROHIBITING UNDERGROUND NUCLEAR TESTING: The House on July 20 vot­ed, 227 for and 179 against, to deny fund­ing of Trump admin­is­tra­tion plans to pos­si­bly lift a twen­ty-eight-year mora­to­ri­um on the under­ground test­ing of nuclear weapons. The amend­ment was added to H.R. 6395 (above).

Since 1992, fed­er­al weapons lab­o­ra­to­ries have used tech­no­log­i­cal sim­u­la­tions and sci­en­tif­ic probes to ensure the safe­ty and poten­cy of the nation’s aging nuclear arse­nal. But a Sen­ate ver­sion of next year’s mil­i­tary bud­get includes $10 mil­lion to pre­pare for a resump­tion of explo­sive under­ground test­ing that was com­mon through­out the Cold War but out­lawed for rea­sons hav­ing to do with arms con­trol and pro­tect­ing pub­lic health and the environment.

Dina Titus, D‑Nevada, said: “Con­duct­ing an explo­sive nuclear test encour­ages our adver­saries, like Rus­sia and Chi­na, to do the same. There is no good rea­son to risk the restart of a glob­al arms race, espe­cial­ly at a time when we have the tech­no­log­i­cal advantage.”

Liz Cheney, R‑Wyoming, said: “If this amend­ment becomes law, the Unit­ed States los­es the abil­i­ty to ensure that we can test, if nec­es­sary, to ensure that our deter­rent is reli­able and, there­fore, cred­i­ble. That… embold­ens our adver­saries and it under­mines our allies’ faith in the nuclear umbrella.”

A yes vote was to adopt the amendment.

	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 (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jaime Her­rera-Beut­ler and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers Not Vot­ing (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Dan Newhouse

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

REPAIRING NATIONAL PARKS, FUNDING PUBLIC LANDS: Vot­ing 310 for and 107 against, the House on July 22nd passed a bill (H.R. 1957) that would autho­rize $9.5 bil­lion over five years for repair­ing facil­i­ties at the Nation­al Park Ser­vice, oth­er fed­er­al land agen­cies and Indi­an Edu­ca­tion Ser­vice schools.

In addi­tion, the bill would per­ma­nent­ly require an annu­al bud­get of at least $900 mil­lion for the Land and Water Con­ser­va­tion Fund, which pro­vides fed­er­al and non-fed­er­al agen­cies with rev­enue for acquir­ing unde­vel­oped land for con­ser­va­tion and recre­ation­al purposes.

All fund­ing in the bill would come from roy­al­ties from oil and gas drilling oper­a­tions on fed­er­al prop­er­ty. The bill would set aside about $6.5 bil­lion over five years for long-neglect­ed repairs at scores of nation­al parks and relat­ed prop­er­ties, gen­er­at­ing tens of thou­sands of pri­vate-sec­tor jobs and halv­ing the park ser­vice’s $12.5 bil­lion back­log of unfund­ed maintenance.

A yes vote was to send the bill to Don­ald Trump for his expect­ed signature.

	Vot­ing Aye (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mike Simpson Vot­ing Nay (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Russ Fulcher
	Vot­ing Aye (5): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Peter DeFazio, and 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: 15 aye votes, 2 nay votes

NULLIFYING BANS ON MUSLIM-MAJORITY IMMIGRATION: Vot­ing 233 for and 183 against, the House on July 22nd passed leg­is­la­tion (H.R. 2486; H.R. 2214) that would nul­li­fy exec­u­tive orders by Pres­i­dent Trump pro­hibit­ing per­ma­nent immi­gra­tion into the Unit­ed States by res­i­dents of twelve named coun­tries, many of which have Mus­lim-major­i­ty populations.

In addi­tion, the bill would lim­it the abil­i­ty of pres­i­dents to use Sec­tion 212(f) of the Immi­gra­tion and Nation­al­i­ty Act to close Amer­i­can bor­ders to immi­grants who pose no threat to U.S. pub­lic safe­ty or nation­al security.

Our own Prami­la Jaya­pal, D‑Washington, called for an end to “dis­crim­i­na­to­ry bans that send the repug­nant mes­sage that our foun­da­tion­al val­ues of free­dom of reli­gion and lib­er­ty and jus­tice for all do not apply.”

Andy Big­gs, R‑Arizona, cred­it­ed Trump with “deci­sive action to help ensure the secu­ri­ty of our immi­gra­tion pro­grams and, thus, the safe­ty of our coun­try. Every time he does so, my Demo­c­ra­t­ic friends cry foul.”

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

ENSURING LEGAL COUNSEL AT PORTS OF ENTRY: Vot­ing 231 for and 184 against, the House on July 22 passed leg­is­la­tion (H.R. 2486; H.R. 5581) that would ensure that law­ful per­ma­nent res­i­dents and oth­er hold­ers of U.S. visas can obtain prompt access to coun­sel when they are held by Cus­toms and Bor­der Pro­tec­tion for screen­ing at U.S. ports of entry last­ing more than one hour.

Jer­rold Nadler, D‑New York, said: “All this bill says is that if some­one is held in sec­ondary inspec­tion for at least an hour, they must be giv­en an oppor­tu­ni­ty to call coun­sel, to call oth­er peo­ple, to call their broth­er-in-law, to call who­ev­er, and to communicate.”

Andy Big­gs, R‑Arizona, said only 17 mil­lion of the 400 mil­lion per­sons enter­ing the Unit­ed States each year receive sec­ondary screen­ing, and that per­mit­ting them “to con­sult with coun­sel or some oth­er inter­est­ed par­ty will bring legit­i­mate trade and trav­el to a grind­ing halt.”

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

In the United States Senate

The Sen­ate cham­ber (U.S. Con­gress photo)

APPROVING $741 BILLION FOR MILITARY IN 2021: Vot­ing 86 for and 14 against, the Sen­ate on July 23rd approved a $740.5 bil­lion mil­i­tary bud­get for fis­cal 2021 that includes $69 bil­lion to fund com­bat oper­a­tions over­seas and hun­dreds of bil­lions for weapons, per­son­nel and research and development.

The bill (S. 4049) would autho­rize a three per­cent pay raise for uni­formed per­son­nel; pro­hib­it U.S. troop deploy­ments against Amer­i­cans exer­cis­ing their con­sti­tu­tion­al right to peace­ably protest and fund prepa­ra­tions for pos­si­bly end­ing the 1992 mora­to­ri­um on under­ground nuclear testing.

In addi­tion, the bill would require the removal over three years of Con­fed­er­ate names from ten Army bases named after offi­cers who waged war against the Unit­ed States, and from oth­er U.S. mil­i­tary assets — includ­ing naval ves­sels — named in com­mem­o­ra­tion of Con­fed­er­ate mil­i­tary fig­ures or bat­tle­field prowess.

James Inhofe, R‑Oklahoma, said Amer­i­ca needs “a cred­i­ble mil­i­tary deter­rent that tells Rus­sia and Chi­na and any­one else who would do us harm: You just can’t win. We are going to win. We will beat you.…That is what this [bill] does.”

Eliz­a­beth War­ren, D‑Massachusetts, said: “It has been more than 150 years since the end of the Civ­il War, but ten U.S. Army posts around this coun­try cur­rent­ly bear the names of offi­cers of the Con­fed­er­ate States of Amer­i­ca.… who took up arms against the Unit­ed States to defend slavery.”

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

	Vot­ing Aye (2): Repub­li­can Sen­a­tors Jim Risch and Mike Crapo
	Vot­ing Nay (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

OUTLAWING TRANSFER OF MILITARY WEAPONS TO LOCAL POLICE: Vot­ing 51 for and 49 against, the Sen­ate on July 21st failed to reach six­ty votes need­ed to adopt an amend­ment to S. 4049 (above) that would per­ma­nent­ly out­law the U.S. mil­i­tary’s trans­fer of com­bat-lev­el weapons and equip­ment to local police at no cost. The untrans­fer­able items would include bay­o­nets, tear gas, tanks, armed drones, grenade launch­ers and explosives.

But police depart­ments could con­tin­ue to receive non-lethal items such as high­wa­ter vehi­cles, cold-weath­er gear, com­put­ers, first-aid kits and flash­lights under what is called the “1033 Program.”

Bri­an Schatz, D‑Hawaii, said: “The last month has made clear that weapons of war don’t belong in police depart­ments.… We saw the ter­ri­fy­ing images of police in mil­i­tary gear storm­ing the streets, com­bat vehi­cles rum­bling down city blocks, rounds and rounds of tear gas shot at peace­ful pro­test­ers, fre­quent­ly with­out warn­ing and often unpro­voked.…  Our com­mu­ni­ties are not bat­tle­fields. The Amer­i­can peo­ple are not ene­my combatants.”

James Inhofe, R‑Oklahoma, called the pro­gram “an effec­tive use of tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey” which, since 1990, has recy­cled more than $7 bil­lion worth of vehi­cles, desks, boots, com­put­ers and oth­er items to local police.

“This is mil­i­tary equip­ment that the mil­i­tary no longer needs and that these [local­i­ties] would be pur­chas­ing any­way,” Inhofe argued. “The equip­ment is always demil­i­ta­rized so that it is appro­pri­ate for pub­lic-safe­ty use.”

A yes vote was to adopt 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

Key votes ahead

The House will take up fis­cal 2021 spend­ing bills in the week that begins on July 27th, while the Sen­ate will vote on judi­cial nom­i­na­tions. Both cham­bers are expect­ed to start work on a coro­n­avirus (SARS-CoV­‑2) relief package.

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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