Good morn­ing! Here’s how Cascadia’s Mem­bers of Con­gress vot­ed on major issues dur­ing the leg­isla­tive week end­ing Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 1st, 2021.

In the United States House of Representatives

The House cham­ber (U.S. Con­gress photo)

INCREASING RELIEF CHECKS TO $2,000: Vot­ing 275 for and 134 against, the House on Decem­ber 28th passed a bill (H.R. 9051) that would increase the lat­est round of COVID-19 eco­nom­ic relief pay­ments from $600 to $2,000 for indi­vid­u­als and from $1,200 to $4,000 for cou­ples, plus $600 per child.

Under both this bill and a $900 bil­lion coro­n­avirus relief pack­age recent­ly enact­ed into law, indi­vid­u­als with 2019 adjust­ed gross incomes up to $75,000 and cou­ples joint­ly earn­ing up to $150,000 would be eli­gi­ble for full payments.

Indi­vid­u­als earn­ing between $75,000 and $87,000 and cou­ples in the $150,000-to-$174,000 range would receive grad­u­al­ly reduced sums.

Full pay­ments also would go to seniors receiv­ing income only from Social Secu­ri­ty, rail­road retirees and vet­er­ans depen­dent on dis­abil­i­ty pay­ments. The bill would add $464 bil­lion to the cost of the pre­vi­ous­ly enact­ed $900 bil­lion package.

Speak­er Nan­cy Pelosi, D‑California, said:

“The Repub­li­cans have a choice — vote for this leg­is­la­tion or vote to deny the Amer­i­can peo­ple the big­ger pay­checks they need. To reject this would be a denial of the eco­nom­ic chal­lenges that peo­ple are facing.”

Glenn Groth­man, R‑Wisconsin, said: “Last time, when we sent out $1,200 checks, I stopped by my local Wal­mart, and the peo­ple in charge of the elec­tron­ics sec­tion said they had nev­er seen such sales in their life. Is that real­ly going to improve the lot of Amer­i­cans, to go over and buy some more elec­tron­ic junk from China?”

A yes vote was to send the bill to the Sen­ate, where it was blocked by Major­i­ty Leader Mitch McConnell, R‑Kentucky.

	Vot­ing Nay (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Russ Fulcher and Mike Simpson
	Vot­ing Aye (4): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Earl Blu­me­nauer, and Peter DeFazio; Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Greg Walden Vot­ing Nay (1): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Kurt Schrader
	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, 5 nay votes

OVERRIDING TRUMP VETO OF MILITARY BUDGET: Vot­ing 322 for and 87 against, the House on Decem­ber 28th sur­passed the two-thirds major­i­ty required to over­ride Pres­i­dent Trump’s veto of a bill (H.R. 6395) autho­riz­ing $740.5 bil­lion for the U.S. mil­i­tary in fis­cal 2021. In his veto mes­sage, Trump dis­put­ed the bil­l’s removal of the names of Con­fed­er­ate gen­er­als from Amer­i­can mil­i­tary bases, call­ing that a move to “wash away his­to­ry.” He also fault­ed the bill for ignor­ing his call for an end to lia­bil­i­ty pro­tec­tions for tech com­pa­nies under Sec­tion 230 of the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Decen­cy Act, among oth­er objections.

Our own Adam Smith, D‑Washington, said it is “enor­mous­ly impor­tant to give our troops the sup­port that they need to car­ry out the job that we all are ask­ing them to do. That is… one of our min­i­mum oblig­a­tions as mem­bers of Congress.”

No mem­ber spoke in sup­port of the veto.

A yes vote was to over­ride the veto and enact the bill into law.

	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, Dan New­house, and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers Vot­ing Nay (1): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Prami­la Jayapal

Cas­ca­dia total: 13 aye votes, 4 nay votes

In the United States Senate

The Sen­ate cham­ber (U.S. Con­gress photo)

JOINING HOUSE IN VETO OVERRIDE: Vot­ing 81 for and 13 against, the Sen­ate on Jan­u­ary 1st joined the House (above) in over­rid­ing Pres­i­dent Trump’s veto of the $740.5 bil­lion mil­i­tary bud­get for fis­cal 2021 (H.R. 6395). This was the first of Trump’s nine vetoes to meet with con­gres­sion­al disapproval.

Jim Inhofe, R‑Oklahoma, said: “We have kids that are over­seas, and they deserve the pay that… would be increased when this bill is passed. Right now, we have crit­i­cal areas like pilots and engi­neers, doc­tors, that are in short sup­ply” because of the pan­dem­ic caused by the nov­el coronavirus.

Richard Durbin, D‑Illinois, the Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic Whip, said the bill “does get tough on Chi­na. It cre­ates a new Pacif­ic Deter­rence Ini­tia­tive that puts Amer­i­ca back in the seat of lead­er­ship in that region.… the admin­is­tra­tion could have start­ed this ini­tia­tive on its own, but it did not, so Con­gress stepped up… because the White House was asleep at the wheel.”

No sen­a­tor spoke in sup­port of the veto.

A yes vote was to rebuke Trump and enact the mil­i­tary budget.

	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

OPENING DEBATE ON VETO OVERRIDE: Vot­ing 80 for and 12 against, the Sen­ate on Decem­ber 30th opened debate on whether to pass the $740.5 bil­lion 2021 mil­i­tary bud­get (H.R. 6395, above) over Don­ald Trump’s veto.

A yes vote was to open the over­ride debate.

	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

Key votes ahead

The 117th Con­gress con­venes today, Sun­day Jan­u­ary 3rd, 2021, at noon Eastern.

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!

© 2021 Thomas Vot­ing Reports.