Good morn­ing! Here’s how Cascadia’s Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tives vot­ed on major issues dur­ing the leg­isla­tive week end­ing Sat­ur­day, August 22nd, NPI’s sev­en­teenth anniver­sary. (Leg­isla­tive weeks ordi­nar­i­ly end on Fri­days, but the House held a extra­or­di­nary Sat­ur­day ses­sion yesterday.)

In the United States House of Representatives

The House cham­ber (U.S. Con­gress photo)

SHORING UP POSTAL SERVICE: Vot­ing 257 for and 150 against, the House on August 22nd passed a bill (H.R. 8015) that would pro­hib­it the Unit­ed States Postal Ser­vice (USPS) from reduc­ing ser­vice below lev­els in effect at the start of the year and require it to treat offi­cial elec­tion envelopes as first-class mail in this fal­l’s bal­lot­ing. In addi­tion, the bill would pro­vide $25 bil­lion request­ed by USPS for cop­ing with the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic in the bud­get year start­ing on Octo­ber 1st.

Until the pan­dem­ic has run its course, the bill would pro­hib­it the USPS from:

• Delay­ing deliv­er­ies or increas­ing the vol­ume of unde­liv­ered mail;
• Clos­ing or con­sol­i­dat­ing any post office or reduc­ing the busi­ness hours;
• Deny­ing over­time pay to USPS employees;
• Water­ing down mea­sure­ments of whether ser­vice stan­dards are being achieved;
• Low­er­ing nation­wide or region­al ser­vice standards.

Jim McGov­ern, D‑Massachusetts, said the bill is need­ed because “we have a pres­i­dent who does not want every vote count­ed in the upcom­ing elec­tion because he believes if we do count every vote, he will lose. We’re in the mid­dle of a pan­dem­ic. More and more peo­ple will be vot­ing by mail.… The cur­rent post­mas­ter gen­er­al is not inter­est­ed in reform­ing the post office, he’s inter­est­ed in dis­man­tling it.…”

Deb­bie Lesko, R‑Arizona., called the bill “pho­ny polit­i­cal the­ater to once again bash Pres­i­dent Trump just in time for the Sun­day talk shows and the Repub­li­can Nation­al Con­ven­tion. And just like all the oth­er times, the media will lap it up. Would­n’t it be nice if we were… vot­ing on a nego­ti­at­ed COVID relief pack­age to help the Amer­i­can peo­ple that could actu­al­ly be signed into law.”

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 Not Vot­ing (1): 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: 12 aye votes, 4 nay votes, 1 not voting

CRIMINALIZING POSTAL WORKER INTERFERENCE: Vot­ing 182 for and 223 against, the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on August 22nd defeat­ed a Repub­li­can motion to H.R. 8015 (above) stip­u­lat­ing it is a fed­er­al crime for any postal work­er to tam­per with elec­tion mail. The mea­sure also sought to allo­cate fund­ing in the bill to pri­or­i­tize the deliv­ery of pre­scrip­tion drugs, equip­ping mail per­son­nel with pro­tec­tive gear and pro­cess­ing elec­tion ballots.

James Com­er, R‑Kentucky, said: “This upcom­ing elec­tion will put mil­lions, pos­si­bly hun­dreds of mil­lions, of votes in the lit­er­al hands of postal ser­vice work­ers who we must trust to deliv­er bal­lots safe­ly and on time.”

Bren­da Lawrence, D‑Michigan, said vot­ing fraud already is a fed­er­al crime and not­ed that “every postal employ­ee takes an oath that they will adhere to the Constitution.…”

A yes vote was to adopt the motion.

	Vot­ing Aye (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Russ Fulcher and Mike Simpson
	Vot­ing Nay (4): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Peter DeFazio, and Kurt Schrader Not Vot­ing (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Greg Walden
	Vot­ing Aye (3): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jaime Her­rera Beut­ler, Dan New­house, and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers Vot­ing Nay (7): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, and Den­ny Heck

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

Key votes ahead

Con­gress is in recess until late September.

Unless Con­gress returns to vote on a coro­n­avirus relief pack­age or oth­er leg­is­la­tion, Last Week In Con­gress will be on hia­tus for about a month.

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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