Last Week In Congress: How Cascadia’s U.S. lawmakers voted (January 25th-29th)

Good morn­ing! Here’s how Cascadia’s Unit­ed States Sen­a­tors vot­ed on major issues dur­ing the leg­isla­tive week end­ing Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 29th, 2021. (The House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives was in recess, and did not hold any record­ed votes.)

In the United States Senate

ALLOWING SECOND TRUMP IMPEACHMENT TRIAL: Vot­ing 55 for and 45 against, the Sen­ate on Jan­u­ary 26th set aside an objec­tion by Rand Paul, R‑Kentucky, to the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the upcom­ing impeach­ment tri­al of for­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump. Paul said the Con­sti­tu­tion pro­vides for impeach­ment of sit­ting offi­cials, but not for­mer office­hold­ers. Democ­rats point­ed to the prece­dent of Sec­re­tary of War William Belk­nap’s impeach­ment and con­vic­tion in 1876 despite his last-minute res­ig­na­tion in an effort to avoid those penalties.

They also not­ed con­sti­tu­tion­al lan­guage allow­ing impeached and con­vict­ed offi­cials to be dis­qual­i­fied from hold­ing future office. Five Repub­li­cans joined all of the Sen­ate’s Democ­rats and inde­pen­dents in vot­ing to table Paul’s point of order. The Repub­li­cans were Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkows­ki of Alas­ka, Mitt Rom­ney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebras­ka and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.

Major­i­ty Leader Chuck Schumer, D‑New York, said:

“The the­o­ry that the impeach­ment of a for­mer offi­cial is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al is flat-out wrong by every frame of analy­sis: con­sti­tu­tion­al text, his­tor­i­cal prac­tice, prece­dent, and basic com­mon sense. It has been com­plete­ly debunked by con­sti­tu­tion­al schol­ars from all across the polit­i­cal spectrum.”

Paul argued:

“As of noon last Wednes­day, Don­ald Trump holds none of the posi­tions list­ed in the Con­sti­tu­tion. He is a pri­vate cit­i­zen… There­fore, I make a point of order that this pro­ceed­ing, which would try a pri­vate cit­i­zen and not a pres­i­dent, a vice pres­i­dent, or civ­il offi­cer, vio­lates the Con­sti­tu­tion and is not in order.”

A yes vote was to table a point of order so that the impeach­ment tri­al can begin.

Cas­ca­dia total: 5 aye votes, 1 not voting

CONFIRMING JANET YELLEN, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY: Vot­ing 84 for and 15 against, the Sen­ate on Jan. 25 con­firmed Janet L. Yellen, sev­en­ty-four as the sev­en­ty-eight sec­re­tary of the Trea­sury and first woman to lead the depart­ment in its two hun­dred and thir­ty-two-year history.

She served on the Fed­er­al Reserve Board of Gov­er­nors between 1994–1997 and 2010–2018, and from 2014 to 2018 she was the first woman to chair the Fed, hav­ing been nom­i­nat­ed by Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma. Dur­ing her con­fir­ma­tion hear­ing, Yellen expressed sup­port for expand­ed eco­nom­ic stim­u­lus as a response to COVID-19 as well as a $15-per-hour min­i­mum wage, envi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­tion and rais­ing tax­es on those mak­ing more than $400,000 per year.

Ron Wyden, D‑Oregon, said: “At the Fed­er­al Reserve Chair Yellen changed decades of con­ven­tion­al eco­nom­ic wis­dom that put too much focus on infla­tion and deficits. She was cor­rect that pol­i­cy mak­ers should focus more on wages, employ­ment, and inequal­i­ty and that the econ­o­my safe­ly could run a lit­tle hotter.”

Dan Sul­li­van, R‑Alaska, said: “I cer­tain­ly intend­ed to vote for Sec­re­tary Yellen, but I was a no vote.…Despite a long robust dis­cus­sion, it was very dif­fi­cult to get her to com­mit to being a strong advo­cate for a robust all-of-the-above ener­gy sec­tor for the U.S. economy.”

A yes vote was to con­firm Yellen.

Cas­ca­dia total: 5 aye votes, 1 nay vote

ENDING FILIBUSTER AGAINST MAYORKAS: Vot­ing 55 for and 42 against, the Sen­ate on Jan­u­ary 28th defeat­ed a Repub­li­can fil­i­buster against the nom­i­na­tion of Ale­jan­dro May­orkas as Sec­re­tary of Home­land Secu­ri­ty, clear­ing the way for a Feb­ru­ary 1st final con­fir­ma­tion vote.

Josh Haw­ley, R‑Missouri., had blocked the nom­i­na­tion for eight days with argu­ments that May­orkas is soft on secur­ing the south­ern border.

Major­i­ty Leader Chuck Schumer, D‑New York, said:

“Our gov­ern­ment recent­ly suf­fered an unprece­dent­ed cyber­at­tack. In the wake of Jan­u­ary 6th, the threat of vio­lence and domes­tic ter­ror­ism remains of great con­cern. But because of the tac­tics of some Repub­li­can mem­bers… [the] nom­i­na­tion is being need­less­ly stalled.”

Sen­a­tor Charles (Chuck) Grass­ley, R‑Iowa, con­tend­ed that May­orkas politi­cized the EB‑5 Invest­ment Visa Pro­gram while head­ing U.S. Cit­i­zen­ship and Immi­gra­tion Ser­vices between 2009–2013. Under that pro­gram, qual­i­fied for­eign investors can obtain per­ma­nent U.S. res­i­dence by invest­ing at least $900,000 in enter­pris­es that cre­ate a spec­i­fied num­ber of new jobs.

A yes vote was to advance the nomination.

Cas­ca­dia total: 4 aye votes, 2 nay votes

Key votes ahead

The Sen­ate will debate more of Pres­i­dent Joe Biden’s nom­i­nees and a $1.9 tril­lion COVID-19 relief pack­age in the week of Feb­ru­ary 1st, while the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives’ sched­ule was to be announced.

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 Civic Impulse, LLC. 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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