Last Week In Congress: How Cascadia’s U.S. lawmakers voted (February 24th-28th)

Good morn­ing! Here’s how Cascadia’s Mem­bers of Con­gress vot­ed on major issues dur­ing the leg­isla­tive week end­ing Fri­day, Feb­ru­ary 28th.

In the United States House of Representatives

DESIGNATING LYNCHING A HATE CRIME: Vot­ing 410 for and four against, the House on Feb­ru­ary 26th passed a bill (H.R. 35) that would des­ig­nate lynch­ing a fed­er­al hate crime. The bill is named in hon­or of Emmett Till, a four­teen-year-old African-Amer­i­can who was mur­dered in Mis­sis­sip­pi in 1955 after hav­ing been false­ly accused of sig­nal­ing advances on a white woman.

The bill says “at least 4,742 peo­ple, pre­dom­i­nant­ly African Amer­i­cans, were report­ed lynched in the Unit­ed States between 1882 and 1968,” and notes that more than 200 anti­lynch­ing bills have been intro­duced in con­gres­sion­al his­to­ry but then shelved. Although lynch­ing can be pros­e­cut­ed under fed­er­al laws includ­ing civ­il rights statutes, this marks its first spe­cif­ic des­ig­na­tion as a fed­er­al crime.

The bill would add lynch­ing to a 1968 hate-crimes law that already cov­ers — and requires increased penal­ties for — offens­es based on the victim’s per­ceived or actu­al gen­der, race, col­or, reli­gion, nation­al ori­gin, eth­nic­i­ty, dis­abil­i­ty or sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion. The four mem­bers vot­ing against the bill were Repub­li­cans Louie Gohmert of Texas, Thomas Massie of Ken­tucky and Ted Yoho of Flori­da and inde­pen­dent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Justin Amash of Michigan.

Karen Bass, D‑California, said: “Make no mis­take, lynch­ing is ter­ror­ism… direct­ed at African Amer­i­cans. Lynch­ing was com­mon­ly used for 256 years dur­ing the peri­od of enslave­ment and for almost 100 years after slav­ery, well into the 1950s. And, frankly, even today, peri­od­i­cal­ly you will hear news sto­ries of noos­es being left on col­lege cam­pus­es, in work lock­er rooms to threat­en and ter­ror­ize African Amer­i­cans, a vicious reminder that the past is nev­er that far away.”

Anoth­er sup­port­er, Don Bacon, R‑Nebraska, con­curred with Bass, remark­ing: “With at least 5,000 lynch­ings in our nation’s his­to­ry, this bill is… acknowl­edg­ment that evil did occur, that mil­lions felt fear in their hous­es, their homes and their com­mu­ni­ties; that many feared for the lives of their dads, their hus­bands and sons; and that this… will help facil­i­tate reconciliation.”

No mem­ber spoke against the bill.

A yes vote was to send the bill to the Senate.

	Vot­ing Aye (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Mike Simp­son and Russ Fulcher
	Vot­ing Aye (4): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Earl Blu­me­nauer, Peter DeFazio, Kurt Schrad­er; Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Greg Walden Not Vot­ing (1): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Suzanne Bonamici
	Vot­ing Aye (10): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, and Den­ny Heck; Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jaime Her­rera-Beut­ler, Dan New­house, and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers

Cas­ca­dia total: 16 aye votes, 1 not voting

OUTLAWING FLAVORED TOBACCO PRODUCTS : Vot­ing 213 for and 195 against, the House on Feb­ru­ary 28th passed a bill (H.R. 2339) that would:

• pro­hib­it the man­u­fac­ture and sale of fla­vored tobac­co prod­ucts includ­ing e‑cigarettes and tra­di­tion­al men­thol cigarettes;
• impose an excise tax on the sale of prod­ucts such as e‑cigarettes and vap­ing devices that deliv­er nico­tine in liq­uid form;
• out­law the mar­ket­ing, adver­tis­ing and online sales of e‑cigarettes and vap­ing prod­ucts to indi­vid­u­als under twenty-one;
• require the Gov­ern­ment Account­abil­i­ty Office to study the impact of liq­uid-nico­tine prod­ucts on pub­lic health;
• and fund stop-smok­ing demon­stra­tion pro­grams in poor communities.
• In addi­tion, the bill would require the Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion to start reg­u­lat­ing prod­ucts con­tain­ing syn­thet­ic nico­tine and require col­or cod­ing to height­en the impact to warn­ings on cig­a­rette packages.

Don­na Sha­lala, D‑Florida, said tobac­co com­pa­nies “knew that the pipeline of life­time smok­ers was dwin­dling, so they start­ed mar­ket­ing new vap­ing prod­ucts to young peo­ple through Insta­gram ads and influ­encers and oth­er social media plat­forms. They also hand­ed out free vap­ing prod­ucts at music events and movies. They clear­ly tar­get­ed chil­dren — our chil­dren — and their strat­e­gy worked. Today, 26.7 per­cent of 12th graders vaped in the last month. This rate has more than dou­bled in the last two years alone.”

Michael Burgess, R‑Texas, said the bill “claims to curb youth tobac­co use, includ­ing vap­ing. The real­i­ty is it bans many types of tobac­co prod­ucts that are legal­ly and vol­un­tar­i­ly used by adults. While I do not sup­port any form of tobac­co use, it is a choice for law-abid­ing adults to make. The unin­tend­ed con­se­quences of sud­den­ly mak­ing legal tobac­co prod­ucts ille­gal will like­ly push peo­ple to the black mar­kets to seek the same prod­uct or worse.”

A yes vote was to send the bill to the Senate.

	Vot­ing Nay (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Russ Fulcher and Mike Simpson
	Vot­ing Aye (4): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Peter DeFazio, Kurt Schrader Vot­ing Nay (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Greg Walden
	Vot­ing Aye (7): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, and Den­ny Heck Vot­ing Nay (3): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jaime Her­rera-Beut­ler, Dan New­house, and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers

Cas­ca­dia total: 11 aye votes, 6 nay votes

PENALIZING HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS FOR DEATHS OF NONVIABLE NEWBORNS: Vot­ing 187 for and 220 against, the House the House on Feb­ru­ary 28th defeat­ed a Repub­li­can mea­sure that sought to add abor­tion-relat­ed lan­guage to a pend­ing bill (H.R. 2339, above) that would out­law the sale and man­u­fac­ture of fla­vored tobac­co prod­ucts. The pro­posed Repub­li­can amend­ment was essen­tial­ly a mir­ror of a bill (S. 311, below) debat­ed ear­li­er in the week by the Sen­ate. A yes vote was to add the Repub­li­can lan­guage to the tobac­co bill.

	Vot­ing Aye (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Russ Fulcher and Mike Simpson
	Vot­ing Aye (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Greg Walden Vot­ing Nay (4): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Peter DeFazio, and Kurt Schrader
	Vot­ing Aye (3): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jaime Her­rera-Beut­ler, Dan New­house, and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers Vot­ing Nay (7): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, and Den­ny Heck

Cas­ca­dia total: 6 aye votes, 11 nay votes

In the United States Senate

PENALIZING HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS FOR DEATHS OF NONVIABLE NEWBORNS: Vot­ing 56 for and 41 against, the Sen­ate on Feb­ru­ary 25th failed to reach six­ty votes need­ed to advance a Repub­li­can-draft­ed bill (S. 311) that would pre­scribe rules of care for new­borns that sur­vive failed late-term abortions.

Health­care providers includ­ing doc­tors could face up to five years in prison if they failed to imme­di­ate­ly ensure the hos­pi­tal­iza­tion of a new­born show­ing signs of life after an attempt­ed abortion.

The new­born would have to receive the same lev­el of care pro­vid­ed to “any oth­er child born alive at the same ges­ta­tion­al age.” The bill also would require med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers or employ­ees of hos­pi­tals, clin­ics or physi­cian’s offices to report to law enforce­ment agen­cies any vio­la­tion they witnessed.

NPI EDITOR’S NOTE: Planned Par­ent­hood has repeat­ed­ly stat­ed that the prac­tice that Repub­li­cans want to out­law is not actu­al­ly per­formed in repro­duc­tive health clin­ics. “This leg­is­la­tion is based on lies and a mis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paign, aimed at sham­ing women and crim­i­nal­iz­ing doc­tors for a prac­tice that doesn’t exist in med­i­cine or real­i­ty,” for­mer Planned Pres­i­dent Lean­na Wen stat­ed last year.  “When you’re pro­vid­ing abor­tion care, this isn’t some­thing that hap­pens,” Guttmacher’s Eliz­a­beth Nash con­curred in a state­ment to CBS News. For addi­tion­al back­ground, con­sid­er read­ing this op-ed by Dr. Jen Gunter.

A yes vote was to over­come a Demo­c­ra­t­ic-led fil­i­buster and advance the bill.

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

Cas­ca­dia total: 2 aye votes, 4 nay votes

IMPOSING LIMITS ON REPRODUCTIVE CARE: Vot­ing 53 for and 44 against, the Sen­ate on Feb­ru­ary 25th failed to reach six­ty votes need­ed to advance a Repub­li­can-draft­ed bill (S. 3275) that would out­law abor­tions after twen­ty weeks of fer­til­iza­tion on grounds that the fetus can feel pain by then.

The bill repu­di­ates the Roe v. Wade stan­dard that abor­tion is legal up to when the fetus reach­es via­bil­i­ty — usu­al­ly after 24-to-28 weeks of preg­nan­cy — and after via­bil­i­ty if the pro­ce­dure is nec­es­sary to pro­tect the health or life of the mother.

Under Roe, via­bil­i­ty occurs when the fetus can poten­tial­ly sur­vive out­side the womb with or with­out arti­fi­cial aid. The bill allows exemp­tions for vic­tims of rape or incest and to save the moth­er’s life. Rape vic­tims must receive coun­sel­ing and med­ical care at least 48 hours before the pro­ce­dure could be exempted.

Doc­tors who vio­late the law could be crim­i­nal­ly prosecuted.

James Inhofe, R‑Oklahoma, declared: “A baby is a baby whether in or out­side of the womb, and each baby deserves a chance to live as an indi­vid­ual cre­at­ed in the image of God.”

Edward Markey, D‑Massachusetts, said: “This is more than a debate about access to safe abor­tion ser­vices. This is about fight­ing for gen­der equal­i­ty” and “mak­ing sure that access to repro­duc­tive health­care is nev­er restricted.”

A yes vote was to over­come a Demo­c­ra­t­ic-led fil­i­buster and advance the bill.

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

Cas­ca­dia total: 2 aye votes, 4 nay votes

Key votes ahead

The Sen­ate will debate judi­cial nom­i­na­tions and a bill on geot­her­mal ener­gy dur­ing the first week of March. The House sched­ule was to be announced.

Edi­tor’s Note: The infor­ma­tion in NPI’s week­ly How Cas­ca­di­a’s U.S. law­mak­ers vot­ed fea­ture is pro­vid­ed by Votera­ma in Con­gress, a ser­vice of Thomas Vot­ing 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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