How Arkansas’ congressional delegation voted

HOUSE

Funding to keep government open. Passed 230-197, a GOP-drafted bill (HR195) that would fund agencies from Jan. 20 through Feb. 16 while renewing the Children’s Health Insurance Program for six years. The measure was intended to avert a partial government shutdown at midnight Friday. It was the fourth stopgap bill offered by the Republican majority after having failed to garner enough votes to pass a regular budget for the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1.

Greg Walden, R-Ore., said: “The choice before us today is to keep the government open or close the government. Whether you are Republican or Democrat, if you vote no, you are voting not to keep the government open. It is that simple.” Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said: “Americans are right to be frustrated by the inability or unwillingness of the Republican-led Congress to do its job and keep the government open. You have the authority to do it and you have the responsibility to do it.”

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

Rick Crawford (R) French Hill (R)

Steve Womack (R) Bruce Westerman (R)

Call for impeachment of

President Donald Trump. Tabled 355-66, a resolution (HRes705) calling for the impeachment of President Trump based on “high misdemeanors” primarily involving the president’s inflammatory and defamatory Twitter postings, and public and private statements. The measure was sponsored by Al Green, D-Texas, under a House rule that entitles any member, on two days’ notice, to offer a “privileged resolution” from the floor within broad limits on subject matter. There was no debate on the resolution.

A yes vote was in opposition to consideration of the impeachment measure.

Crawford (R)

Hill (R)

Womack (R) Westerman (R)

Post-abortion criminal

penalties. Passed 241-183, a GOP-drafted bill (HR4712) that restates a 2002 law intended to protect fetuses that survive an attempted abortion. The bill adds criminal penalties for doctors and nurses who fail to provide post-abortion medical treatment defined by Congress. Existing law makes it a federal crime for any health practitioner to fail to provide adequate care to a fetus that is alive outside the womb after an abortion. The law defines a fetus in those circumstances as a person with full legal protections regardless of their stages of development. The current bill, the Born-Alive Survivors Protection Act, requires surviving fetuses to be immediately transported to a hospital and makes doctors and nurses subject to prison terms if they fail to do so. It would shield the mother from prosecution. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, “born alive” means a fetus that after removal from the mother “breathes or has a beating heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary muscles, regardless of whether the umbilical cord has been cut.” Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said in written comments: “Doctors who fail to provide medical care to newborns will be held criminally accountable. There is absolutely no ambiguity here. This is about protecting babies who are born and alive, and nobody should be against that.”

Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., said in debate: “This so-called ‘born alive’ bill seeks to further politicize abortion and criminalize providers. It is clearly unnecessary because doctors are already bound by guidelines that require them to provide emergency care when facing life-threatening circumstances.” A yes vote was to send the bill to the Senate.

Crawford (R)

Hill (R)

Womack (R) Westerman (R)

Financial penalties on

World Bank. Passed 237-184, a bill (HR3326) that would slash U.S. support of the International Development Association unless it changes its criteria for delivering economic aid to impoverished nations. A World Bank agency, the International Development Association provides grants and loans to the world’s 77 poorest countries with populations totaling 450 million. The bill authorizes a $3.65 billion U.S. payment to the bank over three years. But it would withhold up to 30 percent of the outlay until the Treasury Department certifies that changes are underway, including an emphasis on quality over quantity in the disbursement of funds.

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

Crawford (R)

Hill (R)

Womack (R) Westerman (R)

Extension of no-warrant

surveillance. Passed 65-34, a six-year extension (S139) of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The post-9/11 law is a key government tool for detecting and preventing foreign-based terrorist activity, but also a target of criticism that it imperils the privacy rights of innocent Americans. The law gives agencies, including the National Security Agency and FBI, no-warrants access to commercial databases of foreigners’ voice and digital communications, phone calls, emails, online chats, text messaging and social-media postings — that pass through wireless and landline facilities in the United States. If agencies use the databases to target Americans suspected of terrorist connections, they must obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act-court warrants based on probable cause. When the government inadvertently sweeps up innocent Americans’ communications, the information must be expunged or disregarded, although the law lacks a means for outsiders to see if that has occurred.

John Cornyn, R-Texas, said: “The intelligence community is expressly prohibited from targeting Americans under [this law], directly or incidentally. In fact, the only Americans who might be worried about their communications being swept up are those who are deliberately communicating with foreign terrorists.”

Mike Lee, R-Utah, said the Fourth Amendment “was put in place specifically to protect these very kinds of liberties and to protect the American people against this very type of snooping. [It] does this by prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures of Americans’ persons and property.”

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

John Boozman (R)

Tom Cotton (R)

Stopgap budget bill. Failed 50-49 to reach the 60 votes needed to advance a House-passed bill that would fund agencies from Jan. 20 through Feb. 16 and extend the Children’s Health Insurance Program for six years. This led to a partial government shutdown that began nearly two hours later at midnight Friday. A yes vote was to advance what was the fourth stopgap spending bill (HR195) for the budget year that began Oct. 1, 2017.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said: “The choice before us is quite simple. We can pass a noncontroversial, bipartisan bill to keep the government open, or Democrats in Congress can manufacture a crisis and force a government shutdown over the entirely unrelated issue of illegal immigration.”

Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said: “The American people understand very clearly that Republicans control the White House [and] both houses of Congress and with that comes the responsibility to govern for the good of the entire country. But instead, what we have is dysfunction and chaos.”

A yes vote was to advance HR195 toward final passage. Boozman (R)

Cotton (R)