Good morn­ing! Here’s how Cascadia’s Unit­ed States Sen­a­tors vot­ed on major issues dur­ing the leg­isla­tive week end­ing Fri­day, May 28th, 2021.

The House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives was in recess.

In the United States Senate

The Sen­ate cham­ber (U.S. Con­gress photo)

BLOCKING CONSIDERATION OF BILL TO CREATE BIPARTISAN COMMISSION TO INVESTIGATE JANUARY 6TH ATTACK: Vot­ing 54 for and 35 against, the Sen­ate on May 28th failed to break a fil­i­buster and pro­ceed with con­sid­er­a­tion of a recent­ly-approved House bill that would estab­lish a bipar­ti­san com­mis­sion to inves­ti­gate the Jan­u­ary 6th, 2021 attack on the Unit­ed States Capi­tol by Don­ald Trump’s mil­i­tant supporters.

Forty-eight mem­bers of the Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus vot­ed for the bill, along with six Repub­li­cans: Lisa Murkows­ki of Alas­ka, Rob Port­man of Ohio, Mitt Rom­ney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebras­ka, Bill Cas­sidy of Louisiana, and Susan Collins of Maine. Nine Repub­li­cans were not present for the vote.

Two Democ­rats were also not present: Ari­zon­a’s Kyrsten Sine­ma and our own Pat­ty Mur­ray. Mur­ray said that she missed the vote due to hav­ing flown to attend a fam­i­ly mat­ter, but released a state­ment con­demn­ing its outcome.

“I’ve heard all the var­i­ous excus­es why Repub­li­cans are oppos­ing this bill,” Sen­ate Major­i­ty Chuck Schumer said in a speech after the vote. “It’s too ear­ly. It goes on too long. It’s not need­ed. Almost all of these excus­es are mer­it­less and were invent­ed in the past two weeks. We all know what’s going on here. Sen­ate Repub­li­cans chose to defend the Big Lie [the attack on U.S. democ­ra­cy] because they believe any­thing that might upset Don­ald Trump could hurt them politically.”

A yes vote was to invoke clo­ture and advance the bill.

	Vot­ing Nay (2): Repub­li­can Sen­a­tors Jim Risch and Mike Crapo
	Vot­ing Aye (2): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tors Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley
	Vot­ing Aye (1): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tor Maria Cantwell Not Vot­ing (1): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Murray

Cas­ca­dia total: 3 aye votes, 2 nay votes, 1 not voting

PROCEEDING WITH CONSIDERATION OF THE ENDLESS FRONTIER ACT: Vot­ing 68 to 30, the Sen­ate on May 27th agreed to advance leg­is­la­tion (S. 1260) that would autho­rize $110 bil­lion for tech­nol­o­gy research through 2026. Most of the mon­ey would be invest­ed into arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, semi­con­duc­tors, next gen­er­a­tion wire­less pro­to­cols, quan­tum com­put­ing, and biotech. The leg­is­la­tion is aimed at safe­guard­ing the Unit­ed States’ tech­no­log­i­cal com­pet­i­tive­ness and ensur­ing that the U.S. has the capac­i­ty to man­u­fac­ture its own chips.

This vote fol­lowed the con­sid­er­a­tion of sev­er­al amend­ments, most of which were reject­ed. The suc­cess­ful amend­ments were offered by Ben Sasse (to autho­rize appro­pri­a­tions for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to con­duct research and devel­op­ment in key tech­nol­o­gy focus areas) and Chris Coons (to estab­lish the Foun­da­tion for Ener­gy Secu­ri­ty and Innovation).

A sub­se­quent amend­ment offered by the Pacif­ic North­west­’s Ron Wyden and Mike Crapo was also adopt­ed (to ensure trade is con­duct­ed con­sis­tent with Amer­i­can val­ues, to ensure resilien­cy in crit­i­cal sup­ply chains, to improve trans­paren­cy and admin­is­tra­tion of trade pro­grams and over­sight and account­abil­i­ty of trade agen­cies, and to pro­mote Amer­i­can competitiveness.)

“For decades, the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment has manip­u­lat­ed glob­al com­pe­ti­tion and trade in their favor to grow at America’s expense,” said Sen­a­tor Ron Wyden (D‑Oregon). “It rips off IP, steals tech­nol­o­gy and sends dan­ger­ous coun­ter­feits to our mar­ket. It under­cuts man­u­fac­tur­ers with over­pro­duc­tion and unfair subsidies.”

“It uses cen­sor­ship and dis­crim­i­na­to­ry dig­i­tal poli­cies against its own pop­u­la­tions and Amer­i­can busi­ness­es alike. Worst of all is the prac­tice of forced labor – moral­ly repug­nant on its own, and also a threat to Amer­i­can jobs.”

“Sen­a­tor Crapo and I have an amend­ment that goes after these rip-offs direct­ly. It’s about lev­el­ing the play­ing field with stronger trade rules and quick­er enforce­ment, as well as greater trans­paren­cy in trade.”

“More needs to be done on Chi­nese cen­sor­ship and oppres­sion and I will have plen­ty to say about that before this bill becomes law.”

“For years, Sen­a­tors have been clam­or­ing for a more open process and more amend­ment votes. I can’t tell you how many speech­es I’ve heard on the floor about the virtues of reg­u­lar order,” said Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Chuck Schumer.

“Well, this com­pe­ti­tion bill ought to be the answer to my col­leagues’ prayers. The bill has moved through the reg­u­lar order, fly­ing through var­i­ous Sen­ate Com­mit­tees with stag­ger­ing bipar­ti­san votes. The entire Sen­ate opt­ed to take up the bill by a vote of 86–11. And here on the floor, we’ve held the kind of vig­or­ous, bipar­ti­san, open amend­ment process that Sen­a­tors have been call­ing for.”

A yes vote was to invoke clo­ture and advance a sub­sti­tute ver­sion of the bill.

	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 Pat­ty Mur­ray and Maria Cantwell

Cas­ca­dia total: 6 aye votes

KRISTEN CLARKE, ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL: Vot­ing 51 to 48, the Sen­ate on May 25th con­firmed Kris­ten M. Clarke to be an Assis­tant Attor­ney Gen­er­al head­ing the Depart­ment of Jus­tice’s Civ­il Rights Division.

Clarke’s Wikipedia entry states that she “is an Amer­i­can attor­ney who is the pres­i­dent of the Lawyers’ Com­mit­tee for Civ­il Rights Under Law. She pre­vi­ous­ly man­aged the Civ­il Rights Bureau of the New York State Attor­ney General’s Office under Eric Schnei­der­man. In 2019, Clarke suc­cess­ful­ly rep­re­sent­ed Tay­lor Dump­son, the first Black Amer­i­can woman stu­dent body pres­i­dent of Amer­i­can Uni­ver­si­ty, in her land­mark case against white supremacists.”

A yes vote was to con­firm Clarke.

	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

CHIQUITA BROOKS-LASURE, MEDICARE & MEDICAID ADMINISTRATOR: Vot­ing 55 to 44, the Sen­ate on May 25th con­firmed Chiq­ui­ta Brooks-LaSure, of Vir­ginia, to be Admin­is­tra­tor of the Cen­ters for Medicare and Med­ic­aid Services.

The posi­tion is con­sid­ered to be one of the most impor­tant with­in the Depart­ment of Health and Human Ser­vices (DSHS), which is head­ed by Sec­re­tary Xavier Becer­ra. Brooks-LaSure is the first Black per­son to be con­firmed to the post.

“As the offi­cial charged with over­see­ing pro­vid­ing ser­vices to poor and old­er Amer­i­cans in Medicare and Med­ic­aid, Ms. Brooks-LaSure will man­age rough­ly $1 tril­lion of the fed­er­al bud­get in addi­tion to the [Patient Pro­tec­tion] Act’s health insur­ance mar­ket­places and reg­u­la­tions,” The New York Times explains.

A yes vote was to con­firm Brooks-LaSure.

	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

LWIC will be on hiatus next Sunday

The Sen­ate will be in recess this week, con­ven­ing only for what are known as “pro for­ma” ses­sions. The House will also remain in recess beyond tomor­row’s Memo­r­i­al Day hol­i­day. Last Week In Con­gress will return on June 13th.