Last Week In Congress: How Cascadia’s U.S. lawmakers voted (January 3rd-7th)

Good morn­ing! Here’s how Cascadia’s Mem­bers of Con­gress vot­ed on major issues dur­ing the leg­isla­tive week end­ing Jan­u­ary 7th, 2023.

In the United States House of Representatives

ELECTION OF KEVIN MCCARTHY AS SPEAKER: Rep­re­sen­ta­tive-elect Kevin McCarthy, R‑California, was elect­ed House speak­er on Jan­u­ary 7th, 2023 (East­ern Time), with 216 mem­bers vot­ing to sup­port his can­di­da­cy, 212 sup­port­ing Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Hakeem Jef­fries, D‑New York, and six declar­ing “present.”

McCarthy’s elec­tion came on the fif­teenth bal­lot in an intra­party pow­er strug­gle stretch­ing over four days. The rules of the cham­ber require a major­i­ty vote to elect the House speak­er, who is sec­ond in line for the presidency.

After this vote, House mem­bers were sworn into office and the cham­ber began offi­cial­ly func­tion­ing as part of the 118th Congress.

McCarthy backer James Com­er, R‑Kentucky, said: “For the past two years, one-par­ty Demo­c­rat [sic] rule has result­ed in mul­ti­ple crises that are harm­ing Amer­i­cans with­out any over­sight or account­abil­i­ty from this body…. In a Repub­li­can major­i­ty under Speak­er Kevin McCarthy, this bro­ken Con­gress will final­ly be fixed, we will return to reg­u­lar order and we will drag those sen­a­tors kick­ing and scream­ing along with us every step of the way.”

Jef­fries backer Veron­i­ca Esco­bar, D‑Texas, said:

“I shud­der to think what a Repub­li­can majority’s inabil­i­ty to gov­ern would have meant on [Jan­u­ary 6th, 2021] and what it could mean in the future for those of us who believe in defend­ing our democ­ra­cy abroad, and now, more than ever, here at home. On this painful anniver­sary, thank­ful­ly, the hon­or­able Hakeem Jef­fries made sure that we came togeth­er to mark the moment… and ensure that we recom­mit to our repub­lic and our democracy.”

All Repub­li­cans vot­ing sup­port­ed McCarthy. All Democ­rats vot­ing sup­port­ed Jef­fries. The six mem­bers who effec­tive­ly did not vote by declar­ing “present” were GOP Rep.-elects Andy Big­gs and Eli Crane of Ari­zona, Lau­ren Boe­bert of Col­orado, Matt Gaetz of Flori­da, Bob Good of Vir­ginia and Matthew Rosendale of Montana.

Cas­ca­dia total: 12 votes for Jef­fries, 6 for McCarthy

OTHER VOTES: A total of twen­ty roll call votes were tak­en this week. Most of those were votes for Speak­er that end­ed in a dead­lock, but there were also five motions to adjourn the House. No roll call votes on leg­is­la­tion have been tak­en yet in the 118th Con­gress, and there will be none until next week at the earliest.

Key votes ahead

On Tues­day, the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives is sched­uled to recon­vene and is expect­ed to take up a rules pack­age cre­at­ed by the Repub­li­can majority.

The Sen­ate will be in recess, and does not plan to recon­vene until Jan­u­ary 23rd, at which point it will con­sid­er one of Pres­i­dent Biden’s exec­u­tive nominations.

Edi­tor’s Note: The infor­ma­tion in this edi­tion of How Cas­ca­di­a’s U.S. law­mak­ers vot­ed fea­ture was pro­vid­ed by Vote­Facts News 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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