How Arkansas’ congressional delegation voted
Here is how Arkansas’ U.S. senators and U.S. representatives voted on major roll call votes during the week that ended Friday.
$1.3. trillion federal spending. Passed 256-167, a bill (HR1625) that would fund the government through September at an annual level of $1.3 trillion in discretionary spending, with about $700 billion allocated to the military and the remainder to domestic and foreign-affairs accounts. The bill does not fund the mandatory, or entitlement, spending for programs such as Social Security, crop subsidies and military pensions that accounts for two-thirds of the $4.02 trillion total budget for fiscal 2018.
The bill funds a 2.4 percent pay increase for uniformed military personnel while appropriating $78.1 billion for combat operations overseas, $84 billion to fight the opioid epidemic and $21.3 billion for infrastructure. It raises spending over current levels for a host of domestic programs including renewable energy, National Institutes of Health research, National Park Service maintenance, wildfire prevention and suppression in the West, Great Lakes restoration, and Army Corps of Engineers river and harbor dredging.
The bill provides $1.6 billion for physical and technological barriers on the southern border in response to President Donald Trump’s request for $25 billion in wall funding, but omits language sought by Democrats to grant permanent residency to hundreds of thousands of young illegal aliens known as “Dreamers.”
A yes vote was to send the bill to the Senate.
✔ Rick Crawford (R) ✔ French Hill (R)
✔ Steve Womack (R) ✖ Bruce Westerman (R)
Experimental drugs for the
terminally ill. Passed 267-149, a bill (HR5247) that would give the terminally ill broad access to experimental drugs that have not received Food and Drug Administration approval. The bill would grant legal protection to doctors, hospitals, drug firms and others helping to facilitate these unproven treatments. Supporters said dying people deserve access to high-risk medical interventions as a matter of personal freedom, while opponents said the bill would give false hopes to desperate individuals and undermine long-established FDA procedures.
Morgan Griffith, R-Va., said: “I do not understand why people are afraid of letting people try who have no other hope, whose life is going to be cut short, without taking that Hail Mary pass.” Frank Pallone, D-N.J., said supporters “claim to be helping desperate patients who are looking for hope. If this is such a patient-centered bill, then why does every major patient organization overwhelmingly oppose it?”
A yes vote was to pass the bill.
✔ Crawford (R)
✔ Hill (R)
✔ Womack (R)
✔ Westerman (R)
SENATE
$1.3 trillion discretionary budget. Passed 65-32, a bill (HR1625) that would fund the government for the remaining six months of fiscal 2018 at an annual level of $1.3 trillion in discretionary spending, with about 55 percent allocated to the military and the remainder to domestic and foreign affairs accounts. The 2018 deficit, projected at $472 billion, would be separately funded out of the mandatory-spending side of the $4.02 trillion federal budget. In gun-related measures, the bill authorizes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to conduct research into gun violence, incentivizes states and communities to report mental-health and criminal records to the National Instant Criminal Background System and bars the Social Security Administration and Department of Veterans Affairs from submitting the names of mentally unstable individuals to the National Instant Criminal Background System in the absence of due-process hearings. In addition, the bill would fund security upgrades at schools along with training to help teachers, students and police spot potential gun violence and take steps to prevent it.
A yes vote was to send the bill to Trump.
✔ John Boozman (R)
✖ Tom Cotton (R)
U.S. military role in Yemen. Approved 55-44, killing a measure (SJRes54) that would end funding of U.S. military operations in Yemen unless they receive congressional authorization under the 1976 War Powers Act. The resolution addressed aerial refueling, targeting assistance and other U.S. support of Saudi Arabia’s bombing campaign against Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen. Backers of the resolution said U.S. military involvement in Yemen is illegal without congressional authorization, while opponents countered that there are no U.S. boots on the ground there.
John Cornyn, R-Texas, said: “The U.S. military is not engaged in hostilities in Yemen as that term has historically been understood and applied, since it is not in direct conflict or exchanging fire with Houthi forces.” A U.S. pullback, he said, “would damage U.S. credibility and strengthen Iran’s position in Yemen and throughout the Middle East more broadly.”
Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., said: “A lot of Americans may not even know we are involved in this war. But we should be paying attention because of the carnage that is occurring — 10,000 civilians have been killed since this conflict began. The great, vast bulk of those civilians are dying from airstrikes conducted by Saudi Arabia that we are supporting through intelligence and target assistance and refueling.”
A yes vote was to kill the resolution.
✔ Boozman (R)
✔ Cotton (R)
Bill to combat online sex
trafficking. Passed 97-2, a bill (HR1865) that would authorize Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act to be used to prosecute websites that facilitate prostitution and sex trafficking. The law was enacted to combat the spread of pornography on the Internet, and Section 230 protects Internet service providers and third-party platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Tumblr against prosecution under state and local anti-pornography laws. This bill would deny that protection to websites whose business model is to “knowingly” advance the sex trade. But critics, including the Department of Justice, said its overly broad “reason to know” standard would endanger the free speech of innocent third parties, and therefore make prosecution of sex traffickers more difficult. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, called the bill “a very targeted and very specific approach that doesn’t interfere with the freedom of the Internet at all, but it does stop activity that never was imagined” when the Communications Decency Act became law.
Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said the bill “is going to make it harder, not easier, to root out and prosecute sex traffickers” because, as the Department of Justice noted, it creates new legal hurdles that prosecutors would have to prove in court.
A yes vote was to send the bill to Trump.
✔ Boozman (R)
✔ Cotton (R)