Last Week In Congress: How Cascadia’s U.S. lawmakers voted (December 21st-24th)

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

In the United States House of Representatives

APPROVING $900 BILLION FOR COVID-19 RELIEF: Vot­ing 359 for and 53 against, the House on Decem­ber 21st approved a $900 bil­lion COVID-19 relief pack­age that would start deliv­er­ing ben­e­fits immediately.

The mea­sure (H.R. 133) includes:

• one­time pay­ments of $600 to those with incomes under $75,000 and of $1,200 to cou­ples earn­ing less than $150,000;
• $300 per week through March 14th in added job­less ben­e­fits for laid-off employ­ees as well as “gig econ­o­my” work­ers and the self-employed;
• $284 bil­lion in for­giv­able Pay­check Pro­tec­tion Pro­gram (PPP) loans for busi­ness­es with few­er than 300 work­ers that retain or rein­state employees;
• an expan­sion of PPP to include news­pa­pers, radio and TV broad­cast­ers, reli­gious insti­tu­tions and nonprofits;
• $82 bil­lion for K‑12 and post-sec­ondary edu­ca­tion with a focus on mak­ing class­rooms COVID-free;
• tax cred­its for employ­ers grant­i­ng paid sick leave; and expand­ed earned-income and child tax cred­its for low-income fam­i­lies impact­ed by the pandemic.

In addi­tion, the bill would put an end to sur­prise billing for emer­gency and out-of-net­work med­ical care. The bill was sent to the Sen­ate after being joined with a $1.4 tril­lion mea­sure to fund the gov­ern­ment through September.

Don­na Sha­lala, D‑Florida, said in debate: “With this bill, we are attempt­ing to right our moral com­pass and ful­fill our oblig­a­tion [to] those suf­fer­ing across our coun­try, and guide us out of this dark winter.”

Chip Roy, R‑Texas, said in a press release the bill would “rack up debt, fund the very local gov­ern­ments lock­ing downs schools and busi­ness­es, extend fed­er­al sub­si­dies to pay peo­ple more not to work than to work, fall short on des­per­ate­ly need­ed small busi­ness relief…”

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

In the United States Senate

SENDING CORONAVIRUS AID TO DONALD TRUMP: Vot­ing 92 for and six against, the Sen­ate on Decem­ber 21st gave final con­gres­sion­al approval to a bill (H.R. 133, above) that would pro­vide $900 bil­lion in coro­n­avirus relief along with $1.4 tril­lion in gov­ern­ment-wide appro­pri­a­tions for fis­cal 2021.

In addi­tion to out­lays not­ed above, the bill would:

• pro­vide $29 bil­lion for pur­chas­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing vaccines;
• $25 bil­lion in emer­gency rental aid plus a mora­to­ri­um on evic­tions through Jan­u­ary; $22 bil­lion to help states address COVID-19;
• $20 bil­lion tar­get­ed to Main Street businesses;
• $16 bil­lion for air­lines and $14 bil­lion for mass tran­sit plus a few bil­lion for Amtrak and inner-city bus service;
• $15 bil­lion for cul­tur­al venues and movie theaters;
• $13 bil­lion for food stamps and nutri­tion pro­grams to sus­tain hun­gry children;
• $13 bil­lion for farm­ers and ranchers;
• $10 bil­lion to keep child-care cen­ters open;
• and $1.3 bil­lion in for­give­ness of fed­er­al loans for infra­struc­ture repairs at his­tor­i­cal­ly Black col­leges and universities.

The bill also would expand Pell Grants for low-income col­lege stu­dents and, for the first time, qual­i­fy those in prison for Pell grants to pay tuition costs.

Rob Port­man, R‑Ohio, called the pack­age “a tar­get­ed bill that focus­es on pro­vid­ing a bridge between now and the time at which the vac­cines will be wide­ly available.”

Crit­i­ciz­ing the bil­l’s use of deficit spend­ing to make appro­pri­a­tions, Rand Paul, R‑Kentucky, said the coun­try “can be saved, we can sur­vive this [pan­dem­ic] if we pull togeth­er, but adding more debt is a mistake.”

A yes vote was to send the bill to Don­ald Trump.

	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

Last Week In Congress will return in the new year

The 117th Con­gress will con­vene on Jan­u­ary 3rd, 2021.

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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