Last Week In Congress: How Cascadia’s U.S. lawmakers voted (September 7th-11th)

Good morn­ing! Here’s how Cascadia’s Unit­ed States Sen­a­tors vot­ed on major issues dur­ing the leg­isla­tive week end­ing Fri­day, Sep­tem­ber 11th, 2020.

In the United States Senate

BLOCKING REPUBLICAN CORONAVIRUS PACKAGE: Vot­ing 52 for and 47 against, the Sen­ate on Sep­tem­ber 10th failed to reach six­ty votes need­ed to advance a Repub­li­can-spon­sored coro­n­avirus relief package.

Con­sist­ing of $300 bil­lion in new spend­ing and $350 bil­lion in recy­cled funds, the bill (S 178).stopped well short of a com­pet­ing $3.4 tril­lion mea­sure passed by House Democ­rats in May. The Sen­ate bill would fund sup­ple­men­tal unem­ploy­ment ben­e­fits of $300 per week through the end of 2020 and a sec­ond round of Pay­check Pro­tec­tion Pro­gram for­giv­able loans for small busi­ness­es, while erect­ing a shield against law­suits for busi­ness­es tak­ing rea­son­able steps to pro­tect against COVID-19 expo­sure. The bill omit­ted aid passed by the House such as $1 tril­lion to help states and local­i­ties avert lay­offs, $200 bil­lion in haz­ard pay for essen­tial work­ers and $100 bil­lion to help ten­ants pay rent.

In part, the Sen­ate bill would pro­vide $70 bil­lion for K‑12 edu­ca­tion includ­ing tax cred­its for pri­vate-school tuition; $31 bil­lion for devel­op­ing Covid-19 vac­cines and ther­a­peu­tics; $29.4 bil­lion for the U.S. mil­i­tary; $29 bil­lion for col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties; $25 bil­lion for pub­lic health ser­vices; $20 bil­lion for farm­ers and ranch­ers; $15.5 bil­lion for the Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health; $10 bil­lion for the U.S. Postal Ser­vice and $5 bil­lion in aid to child­care centers.

John Thune, R‑South Dako­ta, said: “We may need to spend more” for coro­n­avirus relief in the future. “This bill is sim­ply an attempt to direct relief funds to some of the biggest pri­or­i­ties right now, like help­ing the hard­est hit small busi­ness­es weath­er this cri­sis and pro­vid­ing more resources for test­ing, treat­ment and vac­cines. These are areas we should all agree on.”

Minor­i­ty Leader Charles Schumer, D‑New York, said the bill “does not help renters keep a roof over their heads or Amer­i­can fam­i­lies put food on the table. It short­changes health care and edu­ca­tion. It does not pro­vide a dime to pro­tect essen­tial state and local ser­vices. It is laden with poi­son pills…to guar­an­tee the bil­l’s fail­ure. The truth of the mat­ter is, Repub­li­cans… don’t want to pass a bill.”

A yes vote was to advance the bill.

	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

Con­gress in the week of Sep­tem­ber 14th will debate leg­is­la­tion to fund the gov­ern­ment on a stop­gap basis when the new fis­cal year begins Octo­ber 1st.

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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