Last Week In Congress: How Cascadia’s U.S. lawmakers voted (January 17th-21st)

Good morn­ing! Here’s how Cascadia’s Mem­bers of Con­gress vot­ed on major issues dur­ing the leg­isla­tive week end­ing Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 21st, 2022.

In the United States House of Representatives

EASIER ACCESS TO BENEFITS FOR VETERANS: The House on Jan­u­ary 20th passed the Ensur­ing Vet­er­ans’ Smooth Tran­si­tion Act (H.R. 4673), spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mark Takano, D‑California, to have the Depart­ment of Vet­er­ans Affairs auto­mat­i­cal­ly enroll eli­gi­ble vet­er­ans, with the vet­er­ans’ con­sent, into the agen­cy’s health care sys­tem. Takano said auto­mat­ic enroll­ment “helps sim­pli­fy the process and pre­vents vet­er­ans from poten­tial­ly miss­ing out on life­sav­ing care.”

A bill oppo­nent, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mike Bost, R‑Illinois, cit­ed an esti­mat­ed $3.1 bil­lion cost, and said the pro­gram could take away from oth­er VA services.

The vote was 265 yeas to 163 nays.

	Vot­ing Nay (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Russ Fulcher and Mike Simpson
	Vot­ing Aye (4): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Peter DeFazio, and Kurt Schrader Vot­ing Nay (1): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Cliff Bentz
	Vot­ing Aye (8): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, and Mar­i­lyn Strick­land; Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jaime Her­rera Beutler Vot­ing Nay (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Dan New­house and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers

Cas­ca­dia total: 12 aye votes, 5 nay votes

AID TO K‑12 SCHOOLS: The House on Jan­u­ary 18th passed the Sup­ple­men­tal Impact Aid Flex­i­bil­i­ty Act (S. 2959), spon­sored by Sen. John Thune, R‑South Dako­ta, to change pro­ce­dures for local edu­ca­tion­al agen­cies to apply for fed­er­al Impact Aid funds in fis­cal 2023. The vote was 414 yeas to 6 nays.

	Vot­ing Aye (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Russ Fulcher and Mike Simpson
	Vot­ing Aye (5): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Peter DeFazio, and Kurt Schrad­er; Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Cliff Bentz
	Vot­ing Aye (10): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, and Mar­i­lyn Strick­land; Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jaime Her­rera Beut­ler, Dan New­house, and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers

Cas­ca­dia total: 17 aye votes

RECOGNIZING BLACK HOCKEY PLAYER: The House on Jan­u­ary 19th passed the Willie O’Ree Con­gres­sion­al Gold Medal Act (S. 452), spon­sored by Sen­a­tor Deb­bie Stabenow, D‑Michigan, to award a Con­gres­sion­al Gold Medal to Willie O’Ree, the first black Nation­al Hock­ey League player.

The vote was unan­i­mous with 426 yeas.

	Vot­ing Aye (2): Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Russ Fulcher and Mike Simpson
	Vot­ing Aye (5): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Peter DeFazio, and Kurt Schrad­er; Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Cliff Bentz
	Vot­ing Aye (10): Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, and Mar­i­lyn Strick­land; Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jaime Her­rera Beut­ler, Dan New­house, and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers

Cas­ca­dia total: 17 aye votes

In the United States Senate

REPUBLICANS DEFEAT FILIBUSTER REFORM WITH MANCHIN AND SINEMA: The Sen­ate on Jan­u­ary 19th agreed to uphold a rul­ing by the Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Pro Tem­pore that allowed sen­a­tors to offer amend­ments and raise points of order regard­ing the Free­dom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act (H.R. 5746).

Reject­ing the rul­ing could have result­ed in sen­a­tors being required to engage in a talk­ing fil­i­buster in order to avoid a vote on the bill.

A sup­port­er of the rul­ing, Sen­ate Minor­i­ty Leader Mitch McConnell, R‑Kentucky, claimed it was need­ed to foil “a direct assault on the core iden­ti­ty of the Sen­ate” by end­ing the need for super-major­i­ty approval to bring leg­is­la­tion to a vote.

An oppo­nent, Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Chuck Schumer, D‑New York, claimed that Repub­li­can sen­a­tors were tak­ing part in a “reac­tionary back­lash” against expand­ed vot­ing and try­ing to make it hard­er for Amer­i­cans to par­tic­i­pate in elec­tions. The vote was 52 yeas to 48 nays.

(Pri­or to this vote, the Sen­ate had vot­ed fifty to fifty to end debate on H.R. 5746, which was ten votes short of the six­ty vote thresh­old required to suc­cess­ful­ly invoke clo­ture, with Vice Pres­i­dent Kamala Har­ris presiding.)

	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

HOLLY THOMAS, NINTH CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS JUDGE: The Sen­ate on Jan­u­ary 20th con­firmed the nom­i­na­tion of Hol­ly Thomas to serve as a judge on the U.S. Ninth Cir­cuit Court of Appeals. Thomas, a Cal­i­for­nia Supe­ri­or Court judge for Los Ange­les Coun­ty since 2018, pre­vi­ous­ly worked for the Jus­tice Depart­ment and was a lawyer for the gov­ern­ment of New York.

A sup­port­er, Sen­a­tor Dianne Fein­stein (D‑California) said: “Judge Thomas has a breadth of expe­ri­ence and knowl­edge that would make her well-suit­ed to sit on the Ninth Cir­cuit.” An oppo­nent, Sen­a­tor Dan Sul­li­van, R‑Alaska, said sen­a­tors were being denied the chance to meet with Thomas and oth­er judi­cial nom­i­nees to eval­u­ate them before a con­fir­ma­tion vote. The vote was 48 yeas to 40 nays.

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

Cas­ca­dia total: 4 aye votes, 2 nay votes

Key votes ahead

The House will be in recess this week; no floor votes are planned.

The Sen­ate is slat­ed to vote on more than half a dozen judi­cial nom­i­na­tions, includ­ing sev­er­al judges for the north­ern Ohio bench and the low­er courts of the Dis­trict of Colum­bia. Exec­u­tive nom­i­na­tions will also be con­sid­ered for mil­i­tary posi­tions and ambas­sador­ships in the Biden administration.

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!

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