Last Week In Congress: How Cascadia’s U.S. lawmakers voted (September 11th-15th)

Good morn­ing! Here’s how Cascadia’s Mem­bers of Con­gress vot­ed on major issues dur­ing the leg­isla­tive week end­ing Sep­tem­ber 15th, 2023.

IRANIAN MISSILE PROGRAM: The House on Sep­tem­ber 12th passed the Fight and Com­bat Ram­pant Iran­ian Mis­sile Exports Act (H.R. 3152), spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Michael T. McCaul, R‑Texas, to impose sanc­tions on for­eign indi­vid­u­als and gov­ern­ment enti­ties that help Iran acquire mis­sile or drone weapons. McCaul said that with exist­ing Unit­ed Nations-based restric­tions on Iran’s mis­sile activ­i­ties about to expire, “we need to pre­vent these weapons sales now before these dead­ly mis­siles and drones are on the bat­tle­field” in Ukraine.

The vote was 403 yeas to 8 nays.

	Vot­ing Yea (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Russ Fulcher and Mike Simpson
	Vot­ing Yea (6): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Val Hoyle, Earl Blu­me­nauer, and Andrea Sali­nas; Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Cliff Bentz and Lori Chavez-DeRemer
	Vot­ing Yea (10): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Marie Glue­senkamp Perez, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, and Mar­i­lyn Strick­land; Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Dan New­house and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers

Cas­ca­dia total: 18 yea votes

CONDEMNING IRAN: The House has passed a res­o­lu­tion (H. Res. 492), spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jan­ice Schakowsky, D‑Illinois, to con­demn Iran for vio­lat­ing human rights and per­se­cut­ing the coun­try’s Baha’i reli­gious pop­u­la­tion, and call for sanc­tions on Ira­ni­ans respon­si­ble for those violations.

A sup­port­er, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Madeleine Dean, D‑Pennyslvania, said: “We stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the per­se­cut­ed Baha’i minor­i­ty in Iran and demand the Iran­ian gov­ern­ment end its intol­er­a­ble per­se­cu­tion of their peo­ple and religion.”

The vote was 413 yeas to 2 nays.

	Vot­ing Yea (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Russ Fulcher Vot­ing Nay (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mike Simpson
	Vot­ing Yea (6): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Val Hoyle, Earl Blu­me­nauer, and Andrea Sali­nas; Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Cliff Bentz and Lori Chavez-DeRemer
	Vot­ing Yea (10): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Marie Glue­senkamp Perez, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, and Mar­i­lyn Strick­land; Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Dan New­house and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers

Cas­ca­dia total: 17 yea votes, 1 nay vote

REPORTING ON WILDFIRE MITIGATION: The House on Sep­tem­ber 13th passed the Accu­rate­ly Count­ing Risk Elim­i­na­tion Solu­tions Act (H.R. 1567), spon­sored by Rep. Thomas P. Tiffany, R‑Wis. The bill would require reports from the Agri­cul­ture Depart­ment and Inte­ri­or Depart­ment on their efforts to reduce the vol­ume of haz­ardous wild­fire fuels on gov­ern­ment lands. Tiffany cit­ed indi­ca­tions that agen­cies have not kept good track of fuel reduc­tion efforts, and said “accu­rate report­ing is nec­es­sary to broad­ly track the progress made on our larg­er wild­fire mit­i­ga­tion tar­gets, as well as indi­vid­ual projects.”

The vote was 406 yeas to 4 nays.

	Vot­ing Yea (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Russ Fulcher and Mike Simpson
	Vot­ing Yea (6): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Val Hoyle, Earl Blu­me­nauer, and Andrea Sali­nas; Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Cliff Bentz and Lori Chavez-DeRemer
	Vot­ing Yea (10): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Marie Glue­senkamp Perez, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, and Mar­i­lyn Strick­land; Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Dan New­house and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers

Cas­ca­dia total: 18 yea votes

INTERFERING WITH CALIFORNIA’S CLEAN AIR REGULATIONS: The House on Sep­tem­ber 14th passed the Pre­serv­ing Choice in Vehi­cle Pur­chas­es Act (H.R. 1435), spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive John Joyce, R‑Pennsylvania.

The bill would stip­u­late that states propos­ing reg­u­la­tions under the Clean Air Act that effec­tive­ly ban the sale of new auto­mo­biles that use inter­nal com­bus­tion engines can­not receive waivers from the Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency (EPA) to adopt such reg­u­la­tions. Joyce said with­out the bill, a plan by Cal­i­for­nia to ban non-elec­tric vehi­cle sales by 2035 “would cre­ate a de fac­to ban on all gas-pow­ered vehi­cles in the Unit­ed States” at that time.

An oppo­nent, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Doris O. Mat­sui, D‑California, said: “This bill would keep dirty gas and diesel cars on the road for­ev­er, doom­ing our chil­dren to face the worst impacts of cli­mate change.” The vote was 222 yeas to 190 nays.

	Vot­ing Yea (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Russ Fulcher and Mike Simpson
	Vot­ing Yea (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Cliff Bentz and Lori Chavez-DeRemer Vot­ing Nay (4): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Val Hoyle, and Andrea Salinas
	Vot­ing Yea (3): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Marie Glue­senkamp Perez; Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Dan New­house and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers Vot­ing Nay (7): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, and Mar­i­lyn Strickland

Cas­ca­dia total: 7 yea votes, 11 nay votes

In the United States Senate

APPROPRIATIONS: The Sen­ate on Sep­tem­ber 14th passed a motion to pro­ceed to con­sid­er­a­tion of the Mil­i­tary Con­struc­tion, Vet­er­ans Affairs, and Relat­ed Agen­cies Appro­pri­a­tions Act (H.R. 4366), spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive John R. Carter, R‑Texas. The bill would pro­vide fis­cal 2024 fund­ing for mil­i­tary con­struc­tion pro­grams, as well as the Vet­er­ans Affairs, Agri­cul­ture, Trans­porta­tion, and Hous­ing and Urban Devel­op­ment Departments.

A sup­port­er, Sen­a­tor Susan M. Collins, R‑Maine, said the bill “keeps our com­mit­ment to our vet­er­ans by fund­ing VA med­ical care and vet­er­ans’ ben­e­fits, includ­ing dis­abil­i­ty com­pen­sa­tion pro­grams, edu­ca­tion ben­e­fits and voca­tion­al reha­bil­i­ta­tion, and employ­ment training.”

The vote was 91 yeas to 7 nays.

	Vot­ing Yea (2): Repub­li­can Sen­a­tors Jim Risch and Mike Crapo
	Vot­ing Yea (2): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tors Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley
	Vot­ing Yea (2): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tors Maria Cantwell and Pat­ty Murray

Cas­ca­dia total: 6 yea votes

TANYA BRADSHER, DEPUTY VA SECRETARY: The Sen­ate has con­firmed the nom­i­na­tion of Tanya J. Brad­sh­er to be deputy sec­re­tary at the Depart­ment of Vet­er­ans Affairs (VA). Brad­sh­er is cur­rent­ly the VA’s chief of staff; she has been on the Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil and was in the Army for twen­ty years.

A sup­port­er, Sen­a­tor Jon Tester, D‑Montana, said Brad­sh­er’s impres­sive record in the mil­i­tary and in gov­ern­ment showed she could “ensure that the VA is uphold­ing its mis­sion to the vet­er­ans and their fam­i­lies.” An oppo­nent, Sen­a­tor Chuck Grass­ley, R‑Iowa, cit­ed “her fail­ure to pro­tect sen­si­tive vet­er­an infor­ma­tion, and her pen­chant for pro­vid­ing mis­lead­ing infor­ma­tion to the Senate.”

The vote was 50 yeas to 46 nays.

	Vot­ing Nay (2): Repub­li­can Sen­a­tors Jim Risch and Mike Crapo
	Vot­ing Yea (2): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tors Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley
	Vot­ing Yea (2): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tors Maria Cantwell and Pat­ty Murray

Cas­ca­dia total: 4 yea votes, 2 nay votes

JEFFREY CUMMINGS, U.S. DISTRICT COURT JUDGE: The Sen­ate on Sepm­ber 12th con­firmed the nom­i­na­tion of Jef­frey Cum­mings to be a judge on the U.S. Dis­trict Court for the North­ern Dis­trict of Illi­nois. Cum­mings was a lawyer at a Chica­go civ­il rights law firm until 2019, when he became a mag­is­trate judge on the North­ern Dis­trict. A sup­port­er, Sen. Dick Durbin, D‑Illinois, said: “Giv­en his vast lit­i­ga­tion back­ground and expe­ri­ence on the bench, he will be a tremen­dous addi­tion to the court.” The vote was 50 yeas to 45 nays.

	Vot­ing Nay (2): Repub­li­can Sen­a­tors Jim Risch and Mike Crapo
	Vot­ing Yea (2): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tors Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley
	Vot­ing Yea (2): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tors Maria Cantwell and Pat­ty Murray

Cas­ca­dia total: 4 yea votes, 2 nay votes

Key votes ahead

The House will take up sev­er­al bills unless its sched­ule is once again dis­rupt­ed. These include Ruben Gal­le­go’s Native Amer­i­can Child Pro­tec­tion Act and a bill spon­sored by Wash­ing­ton State’s Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers per­tain­ing to health­care dubbed the Low­er Costs, More Trans­paren­cy Act. The “Unlock­ing our Domes­tic LNG Poten­tial Act of 2023” is sup­posed to be con­sid­ered lat­er in the week.

The Sen­ate will resume con­sid­er­a­tion of H.R.4366, the leg­isla­tive vehi­cle for Mil­Con VA, Agri­cul­ture, and THUD appropriations.

The Sen­ate is also expect­ed to vote on the nom­i­na­tions of Ver­non D. Oliv­er to be a Unit­ed States Dis­trict Judge for the Dis­trict of Con­necti­cut and Rita F. Lin to be Unit­ed States Dis­trict Judge for the North­ern Dis­trict of California.

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