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

Good morn­ing! Here’s how Cascadia’s Mem­bers of Con­gress vot­ed on major issues dur­ing the leg­isla­tive week end­ing Octo­ber 6th, 2023.

REMOVING KEVIN MCCARTHY AS HOUSE SPEAKER: The House on Octo­ber 3rd approved a res­o­lu­tion (H. Res. 757), spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Matt Gaetz, R‑Florida, to vacate the role of Speak­er held by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Kevin McCarthy, R‑California. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Patrick McHen­ry, R‑North Car­oli­na, was appoint­ed as the tem­po­rary Speak­er in McCarthy’s place.

Gaetz crit­i­cized McCarthy for fail­ing to keep “an agree­ment to ful­fill cer­tain com­mit­ments to make” the House­’s work on the fed­er­al bud­get an open and hon­est process when he was elect­ed Speak­er, includ­ing appro­pri­a­tions bills to fund sep­a­rate gov­ern­ment departments.

A res­o­lu­tion oppo­nent, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Tom McClin­tock, R‑California, said: “If this motion car­ries, the House will be par­a­lyzed. We can expect week after week of fruit­less bal­lots while no oth­er busi­ness can be conducted.”

The vote to vacate the Speak­er­ship was 216 yeas to 210 nays.

Cas­ca­dia total: 12 yea votes, 6 nay votes

CYBERSECURITY JOB REQUIREMENTS: The House on Octo­ber 2nd passed the Mod­ern­iz­ing the Acqui­si­tion of Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty Experts Act (H.R. 4502), spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Nan­cy Mace, R‑South Car­oli­na, to remove min­i­mum edu­ca­tion­al require­ments for appli­cants for cyber­se­cu­ri­ty jobs in the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment. Mace said cur­rent col­lege degree require­ments for the jobs meant that “we are miss­ing out on a tremen­dous amount of tal­ent” poten­tial from non-grad­u­ates with the skills to secure tech­nol­o­gy sys­tems and hack into ene­my coun­tries’ sys­tems. The vote was 394 yeas to 1 nay.

Cas­ca­dia total: 17 yea votes, 3 not voting

In the United States Senate

CONFIRMATION VOTES BY VOICE: This week, the Sen­ate con­firmed, by voice vote, the nom­i­na­tions of Geof­frey Adam Starks and Bren­den Carr to serve five-year terms on the Fed­er­al Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Commission.

Key votes ahead

The House is most­ly par­a­lyzed until it elects a new Speak­er. House Repub­li­cans are antic­i­pat­ing hold­ing an ini­tial vote or set of vot­ers for Speak­er this week.

The Sen­ate is expect­ed to hold only pro for­ma ses­sions this week, with no leg­isla­tive busi­ness expect­ed until Octo­ber 16th at the earliest.

Edi­tor’s Note: The infor­ma­tion in NPI’s week­ly How Cas­ca­di­a’s U.S. law­mak­ers vot­ed fea­ture is pro­vid­ed by Tar­get­ed News Ser­vice. 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!

© 2023 Tar­get­ed News Ser­vice, LLC.