Last Week In Congress: How Cascadia’s U.S. lawmakers voted (February 27th-March 3rd)

Good morn­ing! Here’s how Cascadia’s Mem­bers of Con­gress vot­ed on major issues dur­ing the leg­isla­tive week end­ing March 3rd, 2023.

In the United States House of Representatives

RESOLUTION MOURNING VICTIMS OF QUAKES IN TÜRKIYE: The House on Feb­ru­ary 27th passed a res­o­lu­tion (H. Res. 132), spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Joe Wil­son, R‑South Car­oli­na, mourn­ing the more than 40,000 Turks and Syr­i­ans killed by the recent earth­quakes in Türkiye, and con­demn­ing Syr­i­a’s Assad regime for fail­ing to pro­vide ade­quate relief to vic­tims. Wil­son said: “Syr­i­a’s bru­tal dic­ta­tor Assad is steal­ing human­i­tar­i­an aid, and even worse, has con­tin­ued bomb­ing the affect­ed areas at least 10 times since the earthquake.”

The vote was 414 yeas to 2 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 17 yea votes, 1 not voting

NOTIFYING AMERICANS OF RECORDING CAPABILITIES OF “SMART” DEVICES: The House on Feb­ru­ary 27th passed the Inform­ing Con­sumers About Smart Devices Act (H.R. 538), spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive John R. Cur­tis, R‑Utah, to require mak­ers of prod­ucts that are con­nect­ed to the Inter­net and use a cam­era or micro­phone to inform con­sumers that their prod­ucts have such fea­tures. Cur­tis said the require­ment “will ensure con­sumers are aware of the capa­bil­i­ties of items they are putting in their homes with­out ham­string­ing the tech­nol­o­gy pio­neers” who are mak­ing the products.

The vote was 406 yeas to 12 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 17 yea votes, 1 not voting

VOIDING ESG RULE: The House on Feb­ru­ary 28th passed a res­o­lu­tion (H.J. Res. 30), spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Andy Barr, R‑Kentucky, to dis­ap­prove of and void a Labor Depart­ment rule issued in Decem­ber 2022 that autho­rized fidu­cia­ries of retire­ment plans to con­sid­er envi­ron­men­tal, social, and gov­er­nance (ESG) issues in their man­age­ment of the plans.

Barr said the rule would put Amer­i­cans “into less diver­si­fied, high­er fees, and low­er-per­form­ing port­fo­lios at pre­cise­ly the time that we need to max­i­mize finan­cial secu­ri­ty for Amer­i­cans approach­ing retirement.”

A sup­port­er of the rule, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mark DeSaulnier, D‑California, said: “Allow­ing ESG con­sid­er­a­tions can help finan­cial pro­fes­sion­als iden­ti­fy invest­ments that will be sus­tain­able in the long term and in the best inter­est of their clients.”

The vote was 216 yeas to 204 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 6 yea votes, 12 nay votes

REPUBLICAN LEGISLATION TO REQUIRE ESTIMATES OF INFLATION’S IMPACT: The House on March 1st passed the Reduce Exac­er­bat­ed Infla­tion Neg­a­tive­ly Impact­ing the Nation Act (H.R. 347), spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Elise M. Ste­fanik, R‑New York. The bill would require the Coun­cil of Eco­nom­ic Advis­ers and Office of Man­age­ment and Bud­get to make esti­mates of the impact on infla­tion of each exec­u­tive order issued by the pres­i­dent expect­ed to have a $1 bil­lion or greater impact on the fed­er­al bud­get. Ste­fanik said the bill “is about trans­paren­cy for the Amer­i­can peo­ple, and it is long past time for Joe Biden to take into account this harm­ful impact of his failed, far-left agenda.”

An oppo­nent, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Cori Bush, D‑Missouri, called the bill “a waste of gov­ern­ment resources, and it is a squan­der­ing of time that we should be using to rein in cor­po­rate greed and sup­port those of our neigh­bors who need our help the most.” The vote was 272 yeas to 148 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 11 yea votes, 7 nay votes

DEMOCRATIC AMENDMENT TO H.R. 347: The House on March 1st approved an amend­ment spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Susie Lee, D‑Nevada, to the Reduce Exac­er­bat­ed Infla­tion Neg­a­tive­ly Impact­ing the Nation Act (H.R. 347, above). The amend­ment stat­ed that the House, as well as the pres­i­dent, have the task of decreas­ing infla­tion and reduc­ing the cost of liv­ing by enact­ing thought­ful leg­is­la­tion. Lee said “pro­duc­tive, bipar­ti­san leg­isla­tive action is the best way that we can col­lec­tive­ly com­bat infla­tion and bring down the cost of living.”

The vote was 364 yeas to 56 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 17 yea votes, 1 nay vote

In the United States Senate

JAMAR WALKER, U.S. DISTRICT COURT JUDGE: The Sen­ate on Feb­ru­ary 28th con­firmed the nom­i­na­tion of Jamar K. Walk­er to be a judge on the U.S. Dis­trict Court for the East­ern Dis­trict of Vir­ginia (EDVA). Walk­er has been a fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor in the U.S. Attor­ney’s Office for the dis­trict since 2015, spe­cial­iz­ing in cas­es of alleged cor­rup­tion and white col­lar crime. A sup­port­er, Sen­a­tor Tim­o­thy Kaine, D‑Virginia, said Walk­er’s “expe­ri­ence in and knowl­edge of the EDVA and his work on cas­es of that kind will be very crit­i­cal to his suc­cess once he is con­firmed.” The vote was 52 yeas to 41 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 3 yea votes, 1 nay vote, 2 not voting

JAMAL WHITEHEAD, U.S. DISTRICT COURT JUDGE: The Sen­ate on Feb­ru­ary 28th con­firmed the nom­i­na­tion of Jamal N. White­head to be a judge on the U.S. Dis­trict Court for the West­ern Dis­trict of Wash­ing­ton. White­head has been a pri­vate prac­tice lawyer at a Seat­tle law firm since 2016; he has also been a lawyer at the Equal Employ­ment Oppor­tu­ni­ty Com­mis­sion and the U.S. Attor­ney’s Office for the dis­trict. The vote was 51 yeas to 43 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 3 yea votes, 1 nay vote, 2 not voting

ARACELI MARTINEZ-OLGUIN, U.S. DISTRICT COURT JUDGE: The Sen­ate on Feb­ru­ary 28th con­firmed the nom­i­na­tion of Araceli Mar­tinez-Olguin to be a judge on the U.S. Dis­trict Court for the North­ern Dis­trict of Cal­i­for­nia. Cur­rent­ly an attor­ney at the Nation­al Immi­gra­tion Law Cen­ter, Mar­tinez-Olguin has also been an Amer­i­can Civ­il Lib­er­ties Union (ACLU) lawyer and a lawyer at Legal Aid at Work. A sup­port­er, Sen. Dick Durbin, D‑Illinois, cit­ed her “career-long com­mit­ment to defend­ing equal jus­tice for all, and a pro­fes­sion­al back­ground that is his­tor­i­cal­ly under­rep­re­sent­ed on the bench.” The vote was 48 yeas to 48 nays, with Vice Pres­i­dent Kamala Har­ris cast­ing a 49th yea vote.

Cas­ca­dia total: 3 yea votes, 1 nay vote, 2 not voting

MARGARET GUZMAN, U.S. DISTRICT COURT JUDGE: The Sen­ate on March 1st con­firmed the nom­i­na­tion of Mar­garet R. Guz­man to be a judge on the U.S. Dis­trict Court for Mass­a­chu­setts. A state dis­trict court judge in Mass­a­chu­setts since 2009, Guz­man had pre­vi­ous­ly been a pub­lic defend­er and lawyer at her own law firm. The vote was 48 yeas to 48 nays, with Vice Pres­i­dent Kamala Har­ris cast­ing a 49th yea vote.

Cas­ca­dia total: 3 yea votes, 1 nay vote, 2 not voting

VOIDING ESG RULE: The Sen­ate on March 1st passed a res­o­lu­tion (H.J. Res. 30, above) to dis­ap­prove of and void a Labor Depart­ment rule issued in Decem­ber 2022 that autho­rized fidu­cia­ries of retire­ment plans to con­sid­er envi­ron­men­tal, social, and gov­er­nance (ESG) issues in their man­age­ment of the plans. An oppo­nent, Sen­a­tor Bri­an Schatz, D‑Hawaii, called the res­o­lu­tion “only the lat­est step in a cam­paign to pre­vent Amer­i­can finan­cial insti­tu­tions from mak­ing mon­ey from the clean ener­gy rev­o­lu­tion, and it should offend any­one who sup­ports free mar­kets.” The vote was 50 yeas to 46 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 1 yea vote, 3 nay votes, 2 not voting

COLLEEN LAWLESS, U.S. DISTRICT COURT JUDGE: The Sen­ate on March 2nd con­firmed the nom­i­na­tion of Colleen R. Law­less to be a judge on the U.S. Dis­trict Court for the Cen­tral Dis­trict of Illi­nois. Law­less, a pri­vate prac­tice lawyer in Illi­nois from 2009 to 2019, then became a judge on an Illi­nois cir­cuit court.

The vote was 51 yeas to 41 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 3 yea votes, 1 nay vote, 2 not voting

JONATHAN JAMES CANADA GREY, U.S. DISTRICT COURT JUDGE: The Sen­ate on March 2nd con­firmed the nom­i­na­tion of Jonathan James Cana­da Grey to be a judge on the U.S. Dis­trict Court for the East­ern Dis­trict of Michi­gan. A mag­is­trate judge in the dis­trict for the last two years, Grey had pre­vi­ous­ly been a fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor in the dis­trict and in Ohio. The vote was 49 yeas to 42 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 3 yea votes, 1 nay vote, 2 not voting

Key votes ahead

The House may con­sid­er H. Con. Res. 21 (direct­ing the Pres­i­dent, pur­suant to sec­tion 5(c) of the War Pow­ers Res­o­lu­tion, to remove the Unit­ed States Armed Forces from Syr­ia), the “Pro­tect­ing Speech from Gov­ern­ment Inter­fer­ence Act,” and S. 619 (a bill to require the Direc­tor of Nation­al Intel­li­gence to declas­si­fy infor­ma­tion relat­ing to the ori­gin of COVID-19) as well as sev­er­al oth­er items.

The Sen­ate will con­sid­er more judi­cial nom­i­na­tions, begin­ning with Robert Stew­art Bal­lou, nom­i­nat­ed to be a U.S. Dis­trict Judge for the West­ern Dis­trict of Virginia.

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