Last Week In Congress: How Cascadia’s U.S. lawmakers voted (February 8th-13th)

Good morn­ing! Here’s how Cascadia’s Unit­ed States Sen­a­tors vot­ed on major issues dur­ing the leg­isla­tive week end­ing Sat­ur­day, Feb­ru­ary 13th, 2021. (The House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives was in recess.)

In the United States Senate

NOT CONVICTING DONALD TRUMP: Vot­ing 57 for and 43 against, the Sen­ate on Feb­ru­ary 13th failed reach the two-thirds thresh­old need­ed to con­vict for­mer Pres­i­dent Trump on a sin­gle arti­cle of impeach­ment charg­ing him with “incite­ment of insur­rec­tion” for his role in prompt­ing a dead­ly assault on the Capi­tol on Jan­u­ary 6th by a mob of his sup­port­ers. All mem­bers of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus, two inde­pen­dents, and sev­en Repub­li­cans vot­ed to con­vict Trump.

The Repub­li­cans were Lisa Murkows­ki of Alas­ka, Bill Cas­sidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Ben Sasse of Nebras­ka, Richard Burr of North Car­oli­na, Pat Toomey of Penn­syl­va­nia and Mitt Rom­ney of Utah.

Impeach­ment man­ag­er David Cicilline, D‑Rhode Island, said:

“While spread­ing lies about the elec­tion out­come in a brazen attempt to retain pow­er against the will of the Amer­i­can peo­ple, [Trump] incit­ed an armed, angry mob to riot — and not just any­where but here in the seat of our gov­ern­ment, in the Capitol…while we car­ried out a peace­ful trans­fer of pow­er, which was inter­rupt­ed for the first time in our his­to­ry. This was a dis­as­ter of his­toric pro­por­tion. It was also an unfor­giv­able betray­al of the oath of office.”

Trump coun­sel Michael van der Veen said: “Do not let House Democ­rats take this cru­sade any fur­ther. The Sen­ate does not have to go down this dark path of anonymi­ty and divi­sion. You do not have to indulge the impeach­ment lusts, the dis­hon­esty and the hypocrisy. It is time to bring this uncon­sti­tu­tion­al polit­i­cal the­ater to an end… With your vote you can defend the Con­sti­tu­tion. You can pro­tect due process and you can allow Amer­i­ca’s heal­ing to begin.”

A “guilty” vote was to con­vict Trump.

	Vot­ing Not Guilty (2): Repub­li­can Sen­a­tors Jim Risch and Mike Crapo
	Vot­ing Guilty (2): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tors Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley
	Vot­ing Guilty (2): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tors Maria Cantwell and Pat­ty Murray

Cas­ca­dia total: 4 guilty votes, 2 not guilty votes

AGREEING TO TRIAL RULES: Vot­ing 89 for and 11 against, the Sen­ate on Feb­ru­ary 9th approved rules (S Res 47) agreed to by both par­ties to gov­ern the sec­ond impeach­ment tri­al of for­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump start­ing that day.

In part, the frame­work allowed four hours’ debate on a Repub­li­can chal­lenge (below) to the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the tri­al. A yes vote was to estab­lish tri­al rules.

	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

REJECTING CONSTITUTIONAL OBJECTION TO IMPEACHMENT TRIAL: Vot­ing 56 for and 44 against, the Sen­ate on Feb­ru­ary 9th agreed to a motion that the sec­ond impeach­ment tri­al of for­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump is constitutional.

This dis­pensed with a Repub­li­can argu­ment that Trump, who was impeached by the House while still in office, could not be tried by the Sen­ate because he was a pri­vate cit­i­zen. Democ­rats said that under that log­ic, pres­i­dents could com­mit high crimes and mis­de­meanors in their last days in office and escape accountability.

They not­ed that the pres­i­den­tial oath of office, which is writ­ten into the Con­sti­tu­tion, for­bids the com­mis­sion of impeach­able offens­es on all days of a pres­i­den­tial term. The oath requires pres­i­dents to “pre­serve, pro­tect and defend the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Unit­ed States.”

Democ­rats also cit­ed a let­ter debunk­ing the Repub­li­can argu­ment signed by more than one hun­dred and fifty con­sti­tu­tion­al schol­ars and judges of all ideologies.

Jamie Raskin, D‑Maryland, said: “Pres­i­dent Trump may not know a lot about the Framers, but they cer­tain­ly knew a lot about him. Giv­en the Framers’ intense focus on dan­ger to elec­tions and the peace­ful trans­fer of pow­er, it is incon­ceiv­able that they designed impeach­ment to be a dead let­ter in the pres­i­den­t’s final days in office when oppor­tu­ni­ties to inter­fere with the peace­ful trans­fer of pow­er would be most tempt­ing and most dangerous.…”

Trump coun­sel David Schoen said: “Pres­i­dents are impeach­able because pres­i­dents are remov­able. For­mer pres­i­dents are not because they can­not be removed. The Con­sti­tu­tion is clear: tri­al by the Sen­ate sit­ting as a Court of Impeach­ment is reserved for the pres­i­dent… not a pri­vate cit­i­zen who used to be pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States. Just as clear, the judg­ment required upon con­vic­tion is removal from office, and a for­mer pres­i­dent can no longer be removed from office.”

A yes vote was to estab­lish the tri­al as constitutional.

	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

ALLOWING WITNESS TESTIMONY: The Sen­ate on Feb­ru­ary 13th vot­ed, 55 for and 45 against, to allow wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny in the Don­ald Trump impeach­ment tri­al. This fol­lowed dis­clo­sures about a tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion Don­ald Trump had with Kevin McCarthy, R‑California, the House minor­i­ty leader, as the Capi­tol attack raged. Trump report­ed­ly belit­tled McCarthy’s request that he call off the riot­ers, accord­ing to notes tak­en by the Pacif­ic North­west­’s own Jaime Her­rera Beut­ler, R‑Washington, when she dis­cussed the call with McCarthy.

House man­agers orig­i­nal­ly said they want­ed to depose Her­rera Beut­ler to shed light on Trump’s frame of mind dur­ing the riot, but then asked only that her account be admit­ted as writ­ten evi­dence, which then occurred.

Jamie Raskin, D‑Maryland., called the con­gress­wom­an’s infor­ma­tion “an addi­tion­al crit­i­cal piece of cor­rob­o­rat­ing evi­dence” of the pres­i­den­t’s “will­ful dere­lic­tion of duty as com­man­der in chief of the Unit­ed States” dur­ing the Jan­u­ary 6th attack.

Trump coun­sel Michael van der Veen said: “If you vote for wit­ness­es, do not hand­cuff me by lim­it­ing the num­ber of wit­ness­es I can have. I need to do a thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tion that [Democ­rats] did not do. Please…do not lim­it my abil­i­ty… to dis­cov­er the truth.”

A yes vote was to open the tri­al to witnesses.

	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 MCDONOUGH AS VETERANS AFFAIRS SECRETARY: Vot­ing 87 for and sev­en against, the Sen­ate on Feb­ru­ary 8th con­firmed Denis R. McDo­nough, fifty-one, as sec­re­tary of the Depart­ment of Vet­er­ans Affairs, mak­ing him the sec­ond non-vet­er­an to fill the post. He had been for­mer Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma’s chief of staff and deputy nation­al secu­ri­ty advisor.

Chris Van Hollen, D‑Maryland, said McDo­nough has “promised to defend the VA health­care sys­tem against efforts at pri­va­ti­za­tion [and to] cre­ate a cul­ture of zero tol­er­ance toward sex­u­al harass­ment and assault in the depart­ment,” while pledg­ing “to make end­ing vet­er­an home­less­ness a nation­al priority.”

No sen­a­tor spoke against McDonough.

A yes vote was to con­firm the nominee.

	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

The Sen­ate will be in recess in the week of Feb­ru­ary 15th, while the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives’ leg­isla­tive 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 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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