Last Week In Congress: How Cascadia’s U.S. lawmakers voted (January 4th-8th)

Good morn­ing! Here’s how Cascadia’s Mem­bers of Con­gress vot­ed on major issues dur­ing the leg­isla­tive week end­ing Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 8th, 2021.

In the United States House of Representatives

OBJECTING TO ARIZONA’S ELECTORAL VOTES: Vot­ing 121 for and 303 against, the House on Jan­u­ary 6th defeat­ed a bid to reject Ari­zon­a’s eleven elec­toral votes won by Pres­i­dent-elect Joe Biden.

Oppo­nents of accept­ing, or cer­ti­fy­ing, the votes said Con­gress should appoint a com­mis­sion to audit the 2020 pres­i­den­tial bal­lot­ing in Ari­zona and five oth­er states Biden nar­row­ly car­ried. The objec­tion was brought by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Paul Gosar, R‑Arizona, and Sen­a­tor Ted Cruz, R‑Texas.

Near­ly six­ty per­cent of Repub­li­cans who vot­ed sup­port­ed the objec­tion, while Democ­rats vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly against it. The vote occurred about nine hours after a vio­lent, armed mob of Trump sup­port­ers streamed through the Capi­tol, destroy­ing prop­er­ty, defil­ing his­tor­i­cal spaces and forc­ing law­mak­ers to shel­ter in place for extend­ed peri­ods, many behind bar­ri­cad­ed doors.

Jim Jor­dan, R‑Ohio, argued that in sev­er­al states, Democ­rats “changed the elec­tion rules…in an uncon­sti­tu­tion­al fash­ion, and that’s what we’re going to show over the next sev­er­al hours of debate. The Con­sti­tu­tion is clear…only state leg­is­la­tures set elec­tion law. In Ari­zona, the law says vot­er reg­is­tra­tion ends on Oct. 5. Democ­rats said we don’t care what the law says. They went to a court, got an Oba­ma-appoint­ed judge to extend it eigh­teen days. No debate, no discussion.…They did an end run around the Con­sti­tu­tion in every state that Repub­li­cans will object to today.…It was a pat­tern, it was their tem­plate, they did it in [Ari­zona, Geor­gia, Michi­gan, Penn­syl­va­nia, Neva­da, Wis­con­sin] and yet some of our mem­bers say you should­n’t do any­thing about it, just let it go.”

Jamie Raskin, D‑Maryland, said: “The 2020 elec­tion is over and the peo­ple have spo­ken .…The pres­i­dent has not just had his day in court, he’s had more than two months in court look­ing for a judge to embrace these argu­ments. More than 50 cas­es. At least 88 dif­fer­ent judges includ­ing many appoint­ed by the pres­i­dent him­self have metic­u­lous­ly reject­ed the pres­i­den­t’s claim of fraud and corruption.…The plain­tiffs have lost every case on every issue on the most sweep­ing terms. There is no basis in fact or law to jus­ti­fy the unprece­dent­ed relief being request­ed in nul­li­fy­ing these elec­tions. We are here to count the votes, let us do our job.”

A yes vote was to reject Ari­zon­a’s elec­toral votes.

	Vot­ing Aye (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Russ Fulcher Vot­ing Nay (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mike Simpson
	Vot­ing Nay (5): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Peter DeFazio, and Kurt Schrad­er; Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Cliff Bentz
	Vot­ing Nay (10): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, and Mar­i­lyn Strick­land; Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jaime Her­rera Beut­ler, Dan New­house, and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers

Cas­ca­dia total: 1 aye vote, 16 nay votes

OBJECTING TO PENNSYLVANIA’S ELECTORAL VOTES: Vot­ing 138 for and 282 against, the House on Jan­u­ary 7th defeat­ed a bid to deny cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of Penn­syl­va­ni­a’s twen­ty elec­toral votes won by Biden. About six­ty-eight per­cent of Repub­li­cans who vot­ed backed the move. All Democ­rats who vot­ed opposed it.

Lodged by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Scott Per­ry, R‑Pennsylvania, and Sen. Josh Haw­ley, R‑Missouri, the objec­tion was part of an effort by con­gres­sion­al allies of Don­ald Trump to nul­li­fy Biden’s vic­to­ry based on unsub­stan­ti­at­ed claims of irreg­u­lar­i­ties that state and fed­er­al courts have uni­ver­sal­ly rejected.

Minor­i­ty Whip Steve Scalise, R‑Louisiana, argued that sev­er­al states “did not fol­low the con­sti­tu­tion­al require­ment for select­ing electors…”

“Nowhere in Arti­cle 2, Sec­tion 1 does it give the sec­re­tary of state of a state that abil­i­ty. Nowhere does it give the gov­er­nor that abil­i­ty. It exclu­sive­ly gives that abil­i­ty to the leg­is­la­tures… We’ve seen over and over again states where the ‘Demo­c­rat Par­ty’ [sic] has…  selec­tive­ly gone around this process… So Pres­i­dent Trump has stood up to it… Over 100 of my col­leagues asked the Supreme Court to address this prob­lem just a few weeks ago, and unfor­tu­nate­ly, the court chose to punt… We don’t have that lux­u­ry today. We have… to restore integri­ty to the elec­tion process which has been lost by so many mil­lions of Americans.”

Conor Lamb, D‑Pennsylvania, said: “These objec­tions don’t deserve an ounce of respect… A woman died out there (in the Capi­tol) tonight and you’re mak­ing these objec­tions. Let’s be clear about what hap­pened in this cham­ber today. Invaders came in for the first time since the War of 1812.”

“They des­e­crat­ed these halls and this cham­ber and prac­ti­cal­ly every inch of ground where we work… Enough has been done here today already to try to strip this Con­gress of its dig­ni­ty, and these objec­tors don’t need to do any more. We know that that attack today did­n’t mate­ri­al­ize out of nowhere.”

“It was inspired by lies, the same lies that you’re hear­ing in this room tonight, and the mem­bers who are repeat­ing those lies should be ashamed of them­selves and their con­stituents should be ashamed of them.”

A yes vote was to reject Penn­syl­va­ni­a’s elec­toral votes.

	Vot­ing Aye (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Russ Fulcher Vot­ing Nay (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mike Simpson
	Vot­ing Aye (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Cliff Bentz Vot­ing Nay (4): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Peter DeFazio, and Kurt Schrader
	Vot­ing Nay (10): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, and Mar­i­lyn Strick­land; Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jaime Her­rera Beut­ler, Dan New­house, and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers

Cas­ca­dia total: 2 aye votes, 15 nay votes

ADOPTING RULES FOR THE 117TH CONGRESS IN THE U.S. HOUSE: Vot­ing 217 for and 206 against, the House on Jan­u­ary 4th adopt­ed rules to gov­ern its oper­a­tions dur­ing the 117th Congress.

The pack­age (House Res­o­lu­tion 8) was added to a body of stand­ing rules that has con­trolled House pro­ceed­ings since the 1st Con­gress in 1789.

The new rules would require com­mit­tees to dis­close “truth in tes­ti­mo­ny” infor­ma­tion in real time about wit­ness­es at hear­ings. This would inform mem­bers and the pub­lic — before and dur­ing the ses­sions — about any finan­cial or fidu­cia­ry inter­est wit­ness­es have in the top­ic under dis­cus­sion. In addi­tion, the rules would:

• Allow inves­tiga­tive com­mit­tees to imme­di­ate­ly issue or re-issue sub­poe­nas to for­mer pres­i­dents, vice pres­i­dents and White House staff in their per­son­al or pro­fes­sion­al capacities;
• Estab­lish a select com­mit­tee on eco­nom­ic dis­par­i­ty, reau­tho­rize select com­mit­tees on cli­mate, Covid-19 and the mod­ern­iza­tion of Con­gress and make per­ma­nent an office pro­tect­ing whistle­blow­ers against retal­i­a­tion by their con­gres­sion­al superiors;
• Require an ethics rule to pro­hib­it mem­bers from cir­cu­lat­ing by elec­tron­ic means any “deep fake” video, audio file or image “that has been dis­tort­ed or manip­u­lat­ed with the intent to mis­lead the public;”
• Allow mem­bers to vote remote­ly, by proxy, on the House floor and per­mit com­mit­tees to con­duct busi­ness by video links;
• Pro­mote trans­paren­cy in gov­ern­ment by broad­en­ing the avail­abil­i­ty of House doc­u­ments in machine-read­able for­mats and expand­ing pub­lic dig­i­tal access to com­mit­tee wit­ness dis­clo­sure forms and vot­ing records on amend­ments and markups;
• Give per­ma­nent sta­tus a diver­si­ty office and require com­mit­tees to state plans for address­ing inequities in areas includ­ing gen­der, race and sex­u­al orientation;
• Weak­en the role of the “motion to recom­mit” in enabling the minor­i­ty par­ty to force votes and shape leg­is­la­tion at the close of floor debates and pro­hib­it debate on such motions;
• Require the House­’s offi­cial ter­mi­nol­o­gy to be gender-neutral;
• Deny access to the House floor to for­mer mem­bers con­vict­ed of crimes relat­ed to their con­gres­sion­al ser­vice or elec­tion and grant floor priv­i­leges to the Dis­trict of Colum­bia mayor;
• Bar access by reg­is­tered lob­by­ists and for­eign agents to recre­ation­al areas where mem­bers work out;
• Exempt bills com­bat­ing the cli­mate cri­sis or the spread of COVID-19 from “pay as you go” bud­get rules;
• Require mem­bers to per­son­al­ly cov­er the cost of set­tle­ments paid to resolve staff mem­bers’ charges of mis­con­duct includ­ing sex­u­al harass­ment and discrimination;
• Make per­ma­nent a require­ment that bills con­sid­ered by the Rules Com­mit­tee for floor con­sid­er­a­tion must first receive a com­mit­tee hear­ing and markup;
• Allow the major­i­ty par­ty to “deem” that a con­gres­sion­al bud­get res­o­lu­tion has been adopt­ed, rather than adopt one.

Deb­bie Wasser­man Schultz, D‑Florida, approv­ing­ly not­ed that the rules “exempt cli­mate leg­is­la­tion from bud­getary restric­tions, clear­ing the way for ambi­tious fed­er­al invest­ments to com­bat cli­mate change.”

Tom Cole. R‑Oklahoma, said “this pack­age stinks. It is deeply cyn­i­cal and deeply short-sight­ed. It tram­ples on minor­i­ty rights and it ensures a pow­er grab by Demo­c­ra­t­ic leadership.”

A yes vote was to adopt the rules package.

	Vot­ing Nay (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Russ Fulcher and Mike Simpson
	Vot­ing Aye (4): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Peter DeFazio, and Kurt Schrader Vot­ing Nay (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Cliff Bentz
	Vot­ing Aye (7): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, and Mar­i­lyn Strickland Vot­ing Nay (3): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jaime Her­rera-Beut­ler, Dan New­house, and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers

Cas­ca­dia total: 11 aye votes, 6 nay votes

In the United States Senate

OBJECTING TO ARIZONA’S ELECTORAL VOTES: Vot­ing 6 for and 93 against, the Sen­ate on Jan­u­ary 6th defeat­ed a bid to deny cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of Ari­zon­a’s eleven elec­toral votes (see House issue above).

The votes against cer­ti­fi­ca­tion were cast by Repub­li­cans Tom­my Tuberville of Alaba­ma, Roger Mar­shall of Kansas, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mis­sis­sip­pi, Josh Haw­ley of Mis­souri and Ted Cruz of Texas.

Cruz, a spon­sor of the objec­tion, said: “I want to speak to the Repub­li­cans who are con­sid­er­ing vot­ing against these objec­tions. I under­stand your con­cerns. But I urge you to pause and think, what does it say to near­ly half the coun­try that believes this elec­tion was rigged if we vote not even to con­sid­er the claims of ille­gal­i­ty and fraud in this election…I’m not argu­ing for set­ting aside this elec­tion” but to have it scru­ti­nized at by a con­gres­sion­al­ly appoint­ed commission.

Sen­a­tor Mitch McConnell, R‑Kentucky, said: “The Con­sti­tu­tion gives us here in Con­gress a lim­it­ed role. We can­not sim­ply declare our­selves a nation­al board of elec­tions on steroids. The vot­ers, the courts and the states have all spo­ken. If we over­rule them, it would dam­age our Repub­lic for­ev­er… If this elec­tion were over­turned by mere alle­ga­tions from the los­ing side, our democ­ra­cy would enter a death spi­ral… Every four years would be a scram­ble for pow­er at any cost.”

A yes vote was to reject Ari­zon­a’s elec­toral votes.

	Vot­ing Nay (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: 6 nay votes

OBJECTING TO PENNSYLVANIA’S ELECTORAL VOTES: Vot­ing 7 for and 92 against, the Sen­ate on Jan­u­ary 7th turned back a chal­lenge to the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of Penn­syl­va­ni­a’s twen­ty elec­toral votes in the 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion (see House issue above). The sen­a­tors vot­ing to sus­tain the objec­tion, all Repub­li­cans, were Tom­my Tuberville of Alaba­ma, Rick Scott of Flori­da, Roger Mar­shall of Kansas, Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mis­sis­sip­pi, Josh Haw­ley of Mis­souri, Ted Cruz of Texas and Cyn­thia Lum­mis of Wyoming. Haw­ley raised the objec­tion along with Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Scott Per­ry, R‑Pennsylvania.

There was no debate on the Penn­syl­va­nia challenge.

Josh Haw­ley, R‑Missouri, said ear­li­er that Con­gress “is the place” to resolve elec­toral dis­putes. “In Penn­syl­va­nia, quite apart from alle­ga­tions of any fraud, you have a state con­sti­tu­tion that has been inter­pret­ed for over a cen­tu­ry to say there is no mail-in bal­lot­ing per­mit­ted except for in very nar­row cir­cum­stances, and yet last year, [state] elect­ed offi­cials passed a whole new law that allows uni­ver­sal mail-in bal­lot­ing and then when Penn­syl­va­nia cit­i­zens tried to be heard…before the [state] supreme court, they were dis­missed on grounds of pro­ce­dure and time­li­ness in vio­la­tion of that court’s own precedents.”

Com­ment­ing after the Capi­tol had been secured from the vio­lent mob that had stormed it, Mitt Rom­ney, R‑Utah, said: “What hap­pened here today was an insur­rec­tion incit­ed by the Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States. Those who choose to sup­port his dan­ger­ous gam­bit by object­ing to the results of a legit­i­mate demo­c­ra­t­ic elec­tion will for­ev­er be seen as… com­plic­it in an unprece­dent­ed attack against our democ­ra­cy. Fair­ly or not, they’ll be remem­bered for their role in this shame­ful episode in Amer­i­can his­to­ry. That will be their legacy.”

A yes vote was to reject Penn­syl­va­ni­a’s elec­toral votes.

	Vot­ing Nay (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: 6 nay votes

Key votes ahead

The House and Sen­ate are sched­uled to be in recess dur­ing the week of Jan­u­ary 11th; how­ev­er, the House may con­sid­er a sec­ond impeach­ment of Don­ald Trump.

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