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

Good morn­ing! Here’s how Cascadia’s Mem­bers of Con­gress vot­ed on major issues dur­ing the leg­isla­tive week end­ing Fri­day, Decem­ber 11th.

In the United States House of Representatives

APPROVING $740.5 BILLION FOR THE MILITARY: Vot­ing 335 for and 78 against, the House on Decem­ber 8th adopt­ed the con­fer­ence report on a $740.5 bil­lion mil­i­tary bud­get (H.R. 6395) for fis­cal 2021 that includes:

• $69 bil­lion to fund com­bat oper­a­tions overseas
• $60 bil­lion-plus for active-duty and retiree health care
• $8.5 bil­lion for mil­i­tary construction
• $1 bil­lion for address­ing present and future pandemics
• … and hun­dreds of bil­lions for weapons sys­tems, per­son­nel costs and research and development.

In addi­tion, the bill would:

• require the removal of Con­fed­er­ate names from mil­i­tary bases;
• treat cli­mate dam­age as a nation­al secu­ri­ty threat;
• fund a three per­cent pay raise for uni­formed personnel;
• expand pro­grams for mil­i­tary vic­tims of sex­u­al assault;
• and pro­vide Ukraine with $250 mil­lion for defend­ing itself against Russ­ian incursions.

The bill would require the admin­is­tra­tion to pro­vide Con­gress with nation­al-secu­ri­ty jus­ti­fi­ca­tions for Don­ald Trump’s announced plans to slash U.S. troop lev­els in Afghanistan and Ger­many. This would not pro­hib­it the with­drawals but delay them until after the inau­gu­ra­tion of Pres­i­dent-elect Joe Biden.

Adam Smith, D‑Washington, said the bill “does noth­ing to pro­hib­it the next pres­i­dent, Pres­i­dent Biden, from com­plete­ly draw­ing down in Afghanistan. That is a debate he will have. So any­one who comes to the floor and says they are not vot­ing for the bill because of [Afghanistan] is not real­ly telling the truth.”

Matt Gaetz, R‑Flordia, said: “We have spent decades trad­ing the same vil­lages back and forth in Afghanistan. And I believe the admin­is­tra­tion that leads our coun­try should work to bring those troops home, and unfor­tu­nate­ly, this bill …puts bar­ri­ers in the way of an admin­is­tra­tion that wants to bring our troops home and put Amer­i­ca first.”

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 (3): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Peter DeFazio, and Kurt Schrad­er; Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Greg Walden Vot­ing Nay (2): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzanne Bonam­i­ci and Earl Blumenauer
	Vot­ing Aye (9): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, and Den­ny Heck; Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jaime Her­rera-Beut­ler and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers Vot­ing Nay (1): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Prami­la Jayapal

Cas­ca­dia total: 13 aye votes, 4 nay votes

STOPGAP FUNDING, COVID-19 RELIEF: Vot­ing 343 for and 67 against, the House on Decem­ber 9th passed a bill (H.R. 8900) to fund the gov­ern­ment on a stop­gap basis through Decem­ber 18th. In addi­tion to avert­ing a shut­down, the vote gives lead­ers more time to nego­ti­ate anoth­er round of emer­gency relief for indi­vid­u­als and house­holds fac­ing eco­nom­ic hard­ship as a result of COVID-19.

If the coro­n­avirus aid is agreed upon in com­ing days, it would be includ­ed in a per­ma­nent fund­ing bill for the remain­ing nine-plus months of fis­cal 2021, which would be debat­ed against a dead­line of Christ­mas Day.

A yes vote was to approve stop­gap fund­ing through Decem­ber 18th.

	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

In the United States Senate

SENDING MILITARY BUDGET TO DONALD TRUMP: Vot­ing 84 for and 13 against, the Sen­ate on Decem­ber 11th adopt­ed the con­fer­ence report on a $740.5 bil­lion mil­i­tary bud­get for fis­cal 2021 (H.R. 6395).

In addi­tion to pro­vi­sions in the House sum­ma­ry above, the bill would pro­hib­it U.S. troops from being deployed domes­ti­cal­ly against Amer­i­cans exer­cis­ing their con­sti­tu­tion­al right to peace­ably protest; rein­force Amer­i­ca’s role in NATO; expand health ben­e­fits to Viet­nam-era vet­er­ans exposed to Agent Orange; and ensure that all fed­er­al employ­ees have access to 12 weeks’ paid parental leave.

The bill would also require the removal over three years of Con­fed­er­ate names from 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.

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

James Inhofe, R‑Oklahoma, said that with Chi­na and Rus­sia pos­ing “the most seri­ous threats we’ve seen… I can’t imag­ine hav­ing to face these peo­ple in the field in har­m’s way and say, ‘Well, we did­n’t pass a defense autho­riza­tion bill.’ We’re going to pass it. These kids are going to get… the resources they need.”

Tom Cot­ton, R‑Arkansas, said: “The bill con­demns the pres­i­dent for propos­ing to move some troops out of Ger­many and restricts his abil­i­ty to do so, even though NATO’s fron­tier has shift­ed hun­dreds of miles to the east and Ger­many has­n’t exact­ly car­ried its share of the NATO load. The Sen­ate did­n’t debate this major pol­i­cy change.”

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

	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

SELLING WEAPONS TO UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: Vot­ing 46 for and 50 against, the Sen­ate on Decem­ber 9th refused to block the Trump admin­is­tra­tion’s planned sale of MQ‑9 Reaper drones to the Unit­ed Arab Emirates.

These unmanned aer­i­al vehi­cles are equipped with laser-guid­ed bombs and air-to-ground mis­siles. By this vote, the Sen­ate failed to dis­charge from com­mit­tee a mea­sure (S.J. Res 77) to dis­ap­prove of the sale.

On a sep­a­rate vote the same day, the Sen­ate affirmed an admin­is­tra­tion plan to sell as many as 59 F‑35 stealth fight­er jets to the UAE. Total­ing $23.5 bil­lion, the deals drew oppo­si­tion, in part, because they would skirt tra­di­tion­al con­gres­sion­al over­sight of arms sales in the clos­ing days of the Trump administration.

Chris Mur­phy, D‑Connecticut, said this is “the first time that we would sell these incred­i­bly lethal, incred­i­bly com­pli­cat­ed tech­nolo­gies into the heart of the Mid­dle East, a region.. What we risk doing here is fuel­ing an arms race.” He added “there arguably is no oth­er coun­try on the list for the F‑35s that does as much busi­ness with Chi­na and Rus­sia as the UAE does.”

Roy Blunt, R‑Missouri, said the UAE has been “will­ing to stand with us in at least six long-term deploy­ments. They come; they stay. They are side by side with us in the field. They have been with us in the air.…This is not any kind of gift [but] a pur­chase total­ing $23.5 bil­lion for equip­ment that is made by Amer­i­can com­pa­nies and almost always by Amer­i­can workers.”

A yes vote was to effec­tive­ly delay the arms sales.

	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

CONFIRMING FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSIONER: On a vote of 92 for and four against, the Sen­ate on Decem­ber 9th con­firmed Shana M. Brous­sard for a seat on the Fed­er­al Elec­tion Commission.

The agen­cy’s first African-Amer­i­can com­mis­sion­er, Brous­sard had been an FEC staff attor­ney, and before that she was an attor­ney with the Inter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice and an assis­tant dis­trict attor­ney in New Orleans.

Her con­fir­ma­tion along with that of two oth­er com­mis­sion­ers last week gives the agency a full slate of six com­mis­sion­ers for the first time since 2017.

A post-Water­gate pan­el, the Fed­er­al Elec­tion Com­mis­sion is charged with enforc­ing cam­paign-finance laws in fed­er­al con­tests, dis­clos­ing can­di­dates’ cam­paign-finance data to the pub­lic, enforc­ing rules for con­tri­bu­tions and spend­ing and super­vis­ing the pub­lic fund­ing of pres­i­den­tial elections.

A yes vote was to con­firm Broussard.

	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

Key votes ahead

Both cham­bers will debate fed­er­al gov­ern­ment fund­ing in the week of Decem­ber 14th and may also take up a COVID-19 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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