Last Week In Congress: How Cascadia’s U.S. lawmakers voted (August 2nd-6th)

Good morn­ing! Here’s how Cascadia’s Unit­ed States Sen­a­tors vot­ed on major issues dur­ing the leg­isla­tive week end­ing Fri­day, August 6th, 2021.

The Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives was in recess.

In the United States Senate

TRIBAL HEALTHCARE: The Sen­ate on August 2nd passed an amend­ment spon­sored by Sen­a­tor Alex Padil­la, D‑California, to the Invest in Amer­i­ca Act (H.R. 3684) that would expand fund­ing author­i­ty for ren­o­vat­ing and build­ing health care facil­i­ties for urban Indi­an trib­al orga­ni­za­tions. Padil­la called the expand­ed author­i­ty “an easy, no-cost, bipar­ti­san way to help ensure that this pack­age bol­sters infra­struc­ture in Indi­an country.”

The vote was 90 ayes to 7 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 6 aye votes

STUDYING HIGHWAY USE: The Sen­ate on August 3rd passed an amend­ment spon­sored by Sen­a­tor Cyn­thia Lum­mis, R‑Wyoming, to the Invest in Amer­i­ca Act (H.R. 3684), to require the Trans­porta­tion Depart­ment to make a study of vehi­cle high­way usage and the cost of wear to high­ways caused by that usage.

Lum­mis said: “A high­way cost allo­ca­tion study pro­vides the data that we need in order to make long-term, sus­tain­able, and fis­cal­ly sound deci­sions about how best to invest in our nation’s aging infra­struc­ture.” The vote was 95 yeas to 3 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 6 aye votes

REJECTING TRUMP’S WALL: The Sen­ate on August 4th reject­ed an amend­ment spon­sored by Sen­a­tor Ron John­son, R‑Wisconsin, to the Invest in Amer­i­ca Act (H.R. 3684), that would have barred the can­cel­la­tion of con­tracts for build­ing walls and oth­er secu­ri­ty sys­tems at the U.S. bor­der with Mexico.

John­son said: “Let’s not waste the tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey. Let’s rec­og­nize walls work. We need to com­plete the 285 miles of wall that will help secure our bor­der, that will help secure our home­land, and that will help keep Amer­i­cans safe.”

An amend­ment oppo­nent, Sen. Gary Peters, D‑Michigan, said: “We need to move for­ward with smart, bipar­ti­san invest­ments that secure both our south­ern and our north­ern bor­ders, and we must not look back­ward at the for­mer admin­is­tra­tion’s boon­dog­gle.” The amend­ment failed by a vote of 48 ayes to 49 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 2 aye votes, 4 nay votes

REJECTING FISCAL CONSTRAINTS ON INFRASTRUCTURE BILL: The Sen­ate on August 4th reject­ed an amend­ment spon­sored by Sen­a­tor Rick Scott, R‑Florida, to the Invest in Amer­i­ca Act (H.R. 3684), that would have pro­hib­it­ed spend­ing autho­rized by the bill if the Con­gres­sion­al Bud­get Office finds that the spend­ing would increase infla­tion, in which case the rel­e­vant funds would instead be used to reduce the fed­er­al debt.

Scott cit­ed the need to “start doing some­thing about infla­tion” and rec­og­nize that the $1.2 tril­lion of spend­ing pro­posed by the bill could hurt con­sumers by adding to infla­tion­ary pres­sures. The amend­ment failed by a vote of 42 ayes to 55 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 2 aye votes, 4 nay votes

LIMOUSINE SAFETY: The Sen­ate on August 4th passed an amend­ment spon­sored by Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Chuck Schumer, D‑New York, to the Invest in Amer­i­ca Act (H.R. 3684), to require the Trans­porta­tion Depart­ment to devel­op seat-belt and oth­er safe­ty require­ments for stretch limousines.

The vote was 58 yeas to 39 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 4 aye votes, 2 nay votes

UR MENDOZA JADDOU, DHS DIRECTOR OF CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES: The Sen­ate on July 30th con­firmed the nom­i­na­tion of Ur Men­doza Jad­dou to serve as the Home­land Secu­ri­ty Depart­men­t’s direc­tor of cit­i­zen­ship and immi­gra­tion ser­vices (USCIS).

Jad­dou was chief coun­sel for the agency dur­ing the lat­ter part of the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion. A sup­port­er, Sen­a­tor Dick Durbin, D‑Illinois, said that in her time as chief coun­sel, Jad­dou “not only sharp­ened her mas­tery of immi­gra­tion law, she also gained valu­able expe­ri­ence nav­i­gat­ing USCIS’s admin­is­tra­tive com­plex­i­ties and oper­a­tions.” The vote was 47 ayes to 34 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 4 aye votes, 1 nay vote, 1 not voting

Other Senate action

Along with the week’s roll call votes, the Sen­ate also passed a res­o­lu­tion (S. Res. 310), express­ing sol­i­dar­i­ty with Cuban cit­i­zens demon­strat­ing peace­ful­ly for fun­da­men­tal free­doms, con­demn­ing the Cuban regime’s acts of repres­sion, and call­ing for the imme­di­ate release of arbi­trar­i­ly detained Cuban cit­i­zens; the RENACER Act (S. 1041), to advance the strate­gic align­ment of Unit­ed States diplo­mat­ic tools toward the real­iza­tion of free, fair, and trans­par­ent elec­tions in Nicaragua; and a bill (S. 812), to direct the Sec­re­tary of State to devel­op a strat­e­gy to regain observ­er sta­tus for Tai­wan in the World Health Organization.

Key votes ahead

The Sen­ate is sched­uled today to resume con­sid­er­a­tion of H.R. 3684, begin­ning at 9 AM Pacif­ic. Votes are expect­ed. Pro­ceed­ings can be watched on C‑SPAN 2.

“Pend­ing is the Sine­ma-Port­man sub­sti­tute amend­ment #2137, as amend­ed, post-clo­ture,” Sen­a­tor Roy Blunt’s RPC web­site advis­es. “All time dur­ing adjourn­ment, recess, and Morn­ing Busi­ness counts against the post-clo­ture time. If all post-clo­ture time is used, it will expire cir­ca 7:50 PM Eastern.”

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