Last Week In Congress: How Cascadia’s U.S. lawmakers voted (May 15th-19th)

Good morn­ing! Here’s how Cascadia’s Mem­bers of Con­gress vot­ed on major issues dur­ing the leg­isla­tive week end­ing May 19th, 2023.

In the United States House of Representatives

ATTEMPTED EXPULSION OF GEORGE SANTOS: The House on May 17th passed a motion to refer to the House Ethics Com­mit­tee a res­o­lu­tion (H. Res. 114), spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Robert Gar­cia, D‑California, that would expel Rep­re­sen­ta­tive George San­tos, R‑New York, from the House.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Antho­ny D’E­s­pos­i­to, R‑New York, called San­tos “a stain on this insti­tu­tion, a stain on the state of New York, a stain on Long Island, and a stain on the beloved Nas­sau County.”

The vote to refer the res­o­lu­tion to com­mit­tee was 221 yeas to 204 nays. A yea vote was to send the mat­ter to the Ethics Com­mit­tee. Most Democ­rats vot­ed nay on the motion because they want­ed to expel San­tos from the House instead.

Cas­ca­dia total: 6 yea votes, 11 nay votes, 1 present vote

SALE OF GUNS TO RETIRING LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS: The House on May 17th passed the Fed­er­al Law Enforce­ment Offi­cer Ser­vice Weapon Pur­chase Act (H.R. 3091), spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Rus­sell Fry, R‑South Car­oli­na, to autho­rize a retir­ing fed­er­al law enforce­ment agency offi­cer in good stand­ing to pur­chase the retired hand­gun that the agency issued to the officer.

Fry said: “Not only does this leg­is­la­tion have the poten­tial to save mil­lions of dol­lars in waste, but it would off­set the cost of pur­chas­ing new weapons and fund oth­er agency expens­es.” An oppo­nent, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Syd­ney Kam­lager-Dove, D‑California, said: “The good-stand­ing qual­i­fi­ca­tion in this bill is too sub­jec­tive to accu­rate­ly pro­tect Amer­i­cans.” The vote was 232 yeas to 198 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 7 yea votes, 11 nay votes

MORE PUNITIVE MEASURES TARGETING IMMIGRANTS: The House on May 17th passed the Repub­li­can-named “Pro­tect Our Law Enforce­ment with Immi­gra­tion Con­trol and Enforce­ment Act” (H.R. 2494), spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Andrew R. Gar­bari­no, R‑New York, to make an assault on a law enforce­ment offi­cer a deportable offense.

Gar­bari­no said the change would “show our brave men and women in law enforce­ment that we have their backs as they con­tin­ue to bat­tle the crim­i­nal ele­ment cur­rent­ly tak­ing advan­tage of our unse­cured south­ern border.”

An oppo­nent, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jer­rold Nadler, D‑N.Y., said: “The bill is so broad and over­in­clu­sive that it could lead to tru­ly absurd results and to the depor­ta­tion of peo­ple who had no inten­tion of ever harm­ing a law enforce­ment officer.”

The vote was 255 yeas to 175 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 8 yea votes, 10 nay votes

REPUBLICAN-DRAFTED RESOLUTION BACKING LAW ENFORCEMENT: The House on May 18th passed a res­o­lu­tion (H. Con. Res. 40), spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ken Buck, R‑Colorado, to state sup­port for the efforts of local law enforce­ment offi­cers to keep com­mu­ni­ties safe, and con­demn calls to defund or abol­ish the police. Buck said: “These indi­vid­u­als put their lives on the line every sin­gle day to pro­tect our com­mu­ni­ties and keep us safe, and it is time that we acknowl­edged their self­less­ness and dedication.”

An oppo­nent, Rep. Jer­rold Nadler, D‑New York, said: “We should oppose this res­o­lu­tion because it is bla­tant­ly one-sided, it blames left­ist agi­ta­tors improp­er­ly, and it does not deal with fed­er­al law enforce­ment agencies.”

The vote was 301 yeas to 119 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 13 yea votes, 5 nay votes

REDUCING POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY: The House on May 18th passed an amend­ment spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Antho­ny D’E­s­pos­i­to, R‑New York, to a res­o­lu­tion (H. Con. Res. 40, above). The amend­ment would encour­age states to adopt leg­is­la­tion set­ting out the rights offered to law enforce­ment offi­cers being inves­ti­gat­ed or pros­e­cut­ed for alleged offi­cial mis­con­duct as a way to help ensure mutu­al­ly respect­ful dia­logue between the police and com­mu­ni­ty residents.

D’E­s­pos­i­to said: “My amend­ment works to ensure law enforce­ment offi­cials have fair admin­is­tra­tion of jus­tice dur­ing inves­ti­ga­tions and encour­ages states to adopt their own bill of rights to sup­port the brave men and women of law enforcement.”

An amend­ment oppo­nent, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jer­rold Nadler, D‑New York said: “This type of leg­is­la­tion has been one of the great­est obsta­cles to police account­abil­i­ty, hin­der­ing inves­ti­ga­tions, and shield­ing mis­con­duct from pub­lic scrutiny.”

The vote was 268 yeas to 156 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 10 yea votes, 8 nay votes

LIMITING SEARCHES OF ELECTRONIC RECORDS: The House on May 15th passed the Nondis­clo­sure Orders Fair­ness Act (H.R. 3089), spon­sored by Rep. Scott Fitzger­ald, R‑Wis. The bill would place restric­tions on the pow­er of gov­ern­ment enti­ties to con­duct search­es of an indi­vid­u­al’s records that are stored remote­ly by third-par­ty ser­vice providers, in the prac­tice known as cloud com­put­ing and stor­age. Fitzger­ald said that law enforce­ment agen­cies have been using secre­cy orders imposed on the ser­vice providers to pre­vent the dis­clo­sure of search­es of indi­vid­ual records, and the bill “would stop this abuse, which has allowed the cir­cum­ven­tion of Fourth Amend­ment pro­tec­tions in favor of sim­ple con­ve­nience.” The vote was unan­i­mous with 412 yeas.

Cas­ca­dia total: 17 yea votes, 1 not voting

EXPRESSING SUPPORT FOR NATIONAL POLICE WEEK: The House on May 15th passed a res­o­lu­tion (H. Res. 363), spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Michael Guest, R‑Mississippi, to express sup­port for Nation­al Police Week, which took place last week, and rec­og­nize the work of U.S. law enforce­ment offi­cers and the risk of vio­lence that they face. Guest said: “It is of the utmost impor­tance that we hon­or the men and women of law enforce­ment and those who made the ulti­mate sac­ri­fice in this noble pur­suit.” The vote was 413 yeas to 2 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 18 yea votes

In the United States Senate

NANCY ABUDU, APPEALS COURT JUDGE: The Sen­ate on May 18th con­firmed the nom­i­na­tion of Nan­cy G. Abudu to be a judge on the U.S. Eleventh Cir­cuit Court of Appeals. Abudu was a lawyer and then offi­cial at the Amer­i­can Civ­il Lib­er­ties Union (ACLU) from 2005 to 2019; since then, she has been a lawyer at the South­ern Pover­ty Law Cen­ter in Atlanta. A sup­port­er, Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Chuck Schumer, D‑N.Y., said Abudu “has ded­i­cat­ed her career to ensur­ing that dream is alive and well for every­one in this country.”

An oppo­nent, Sen­ate Minor­i­ty Leader Mitch McConnell, R‑Kentucky, said Abudu was “unfit for judi­cial ser­vice” due to sup­posed fear­mon­ger­ing about alleged racist designs to the legal sys­tem and mem­ber­ship in groups that under­mine the rule of law. The vote was 49 yeas to 47 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 4 yea votes, 2 nay votes

BRADLEY N. GARCIA, APPEALS COURT JUDGE: The Sen­ate on May 15th con­firmed the nom­i­na­tion of Bradley N. Gar­cia to be a judge on the Wash­ing­ton, D.C., Cir­cuit Court of Appeals. From 2013 to 2022, Gar­cia was a pri­vate prac­tice lawyer at the Mel­ve­ny & Myers law firm; for the past year, he has been a deputy assis­tant attor­ney gen­er­al at the Jus­tice Depart­ment. A sup­port­er, Sen­a­tor Dick Durbin, D‑Ill., said that in his time at Jus­tice, Gar­cia “has con­tin­ued to demon­strate his com­mit­ment to pub­lic ser­vice and defend­ing the rule of law.”

The vote was 53 yeas to 40 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 4 yea votes, 2 nay votes

JENNY C. DANIEL, U.S. DISTRICT COURT JUDGE: The Sen­ate on May 17th con­firmed the nom­i­na­tion of Jere­my C. Daniel to be a judge on the U.S. Dis­trict Court for the North­ern Dis­trict of Illi­nois. Daniel has been a fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor in the dis­trict since 2014, after work­ing for six years as a pri­vate prac­tice lawyer in Chica­go. A sup­port­er, Sen­a­tor Dick Durbin, D‑Illinois, cit­ed Daniel’s “breadth of expe­ri­ence prac­tic­ing in the North­ern Dis­trict of Illi­nois and his exper­tise in intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty and crim­i­nal law.” The vote was 56 yeas to 40 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 4 yea votes, 2 nay votes

VOIDING DHS RULE TO PUNISH IMMIGRANTS: The Sen­ate on May 17th passed a res­o­lu­tion (S.J. Res. 18), spon­sored by Sen­a­tor Roger Mar­shall, R‑Kansas, to dis­ap­prove of and void a Home­land Secu­ri­ty Depart­ment rule that would allow immi­grants into the U.S. to obtain legal res­i­den­cy sta­tus, regard­less of whether they appear like­ly to become reliant on gov­ern­ment assistance.

Mar­shall said: “The Biden admin­is­tra­tion’s pub­lic charge rule makes a mock­ery of the law and the intent of Con­gress to ensure that immi­grants are self-sufficient.”

The vote was 50 yeas to 47 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 2 yea votes, 4 nay votes

OVERRIDING THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA’S LOCAL LEGISLATIVE BODY ON POLICING: The Sen­ate on May 16th passed a res­o­lu­tion (H.J. Res. 42), spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Andrew Clyde, R‑Georgia, to dis­ap­prove of and void the Wash­ing­ton, D.C., Coun­cil’s adop­tion of a law chang­ing polic­ing poli­cies for D.C. police offi­cers. A sup­port­er, Sen­a­tor Roger Mar­shall, R‑Kansas, said void­ing the law “makes D.C. safer, but it also sends a mes­sage to the entire country–a mes­sage that we want safe streets, we want safe com­mu­ni­ties, we want safe schools, and we want to do it in a bipar­ti­san way.”

The vote, on May 16, was 56 yeas to 43 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 2 yea votes, 4 nay votes

Key votes ahead

The House will attempt to void more Biden admin­is­tra­tion rules by pass­ing Repub­li­can-spon­sored res­o­lu­tions. It will also take up the “HALT Fen­tanyl Act,” Pre­vent­ing the Financ­ing of Ille­gal Syn­thet­ic Drugs Act, Veter­ans’ Com­pen­sa­tion Cost-of-Liv­ing Adjust­ment Act of 2023 (spon­sored by Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tor Jon Tester), and the Chi­na Finan­cial Threat Mit­i­ga­tion Act of 2023 (spon­sored by Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Abi­gail Spanberger.) 

The Sen­ate will be in recess this week, with only pro for­ma ses­sions scheduled.

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