Bills

Issue:  H.R. 2832 To extend the Generalized System of Preferences, and for other purposes [Trade Adjustment Assistance Extension Act of 2011].  Question:  On passage of the bill as amended [originally passed in House by voice vote (9-7-11)] (3/5 required).

Result:   Passed 70 to 27, 3 not voting. Became Public Law No: 112-40 (signed by the President 10-21-11).  GOP and Democrats scored.

Bill Summary:  Extends federal aid and retraining programs (trade adjustment assistance [TAA]) for workers whose jobs move overseas because of so-called free trade agreements.

Analysis:  This measure continues an unconstitutional function of the federal government and uses the aid stick to subject states to federal regulations over state matters.

Moreover, recent free trade agreements are misleadingly named.   They do not promote free trade, but heavily regulated trade, supervised by international and regional organizations (such as the WTO and the NAFTA tribunals) — an unconstitutional delegation of authority.

We have assigned (good vote) to the Nays and (bad vote) to the Yeas. (P = voted present; ? = not voting; blank = not listed on roll call.)

Issue:  S.J. Res. 25; A joint resolution relating to the disapproval of the President’s exercise of authority to increase the debt limit, as submitted under section 3101A of title 31, United States Code, on August 2, 2011.  Question:  Motion to Proceed to the Consideration of S.J. Res. 25.

Result:  Motion to Proceed rejected 45 to 52, 3 not voting.  Democrats scored.

Bill Summary:  S.J. Res. 25, if enacted into law, would have prevented an increase in the national debt ceiling.

Analysis:  As part of the debt ceiling deal agreed to in August (see House Roll Call 690 (S.365) (8/1/11) Budget Control Act of 2011, the debt ceiling would be raised by $2.1 or more in stages corresponding to agreed cuts in ten-year spending. This amount was expected to tide the federal appetite over until after the 2012 elections.

However, the agreement also included a disapproval process for the interim debt increases when the debt threatened to bump against the ceiling. The disapproval process had little teeth. Congress (i.e., both houses) would have to enact a joint resolution disapproving the increase to block it – an unlikely event with the Republicans controlling the House, the Democrats the Senate, and the White House able to veto the resolution.

So the almost unanimous vote by Senate Republicans to block the debt increase was mostly posturing. However, we give credit to the lone Democrat (Ben Nelson from Nebraska) who bucked his party leadership and refused to agree to raising the limit.

We have assigned (good vote) to the Yeas and (bad vote) to the Nays. (P = voted present; ? = not voting; blank = not listed on roll call.)

Issue:  S.AMDT.501 (DeMint) Amends S. 679 to repeal the authority to provide certain loans to the International Monetary Fund, the increase in the United States quota to the Fund, and certain other related authorities, and to rescind related appropriated amounts.

Result: Amendment rejected 44 to 55, 1 not voting (3/5 required). GOP and Democrat selected vote.

Amendment Summary:   Stops the IMF from having access to $108 billion allocated by Congress in 2009 to bailout foreign countries.   Rejects an increase in the U.S. quota to the IMF.

Analysis:   In 2009, a Democratic-controlled Congress approved a request of the Obama administration to make $108 billion available to the IMF for loans to struggling European countries.

Amendment co-sponsor John Cornyn (R-TX) stated: “American taxpayers have seen more bailouts than they can stomach, and the last thing they should have to worry about are their hard-earned tax dollars being used to rescue a foreign government.”

There is no constitutional authority for preserving even the status quo re U.S. contributions to the Internationalists’ IMF scheme for managing the world (see Read more, below). However, the vote on this amendment sends a positive signal that American taxpayers come before unconstitutional international “obligations.”   Even though the amendment (requiring 3/5 to pass) was doomed to fail, the roll call nevertheless identifies those senators willing to support the right priorities on this issue.

We have assigned (good vote) to the Yeas and (bad vote) to the Nays. (P = voted present; ? = not voting; blank = not listed on roll call.)

Read more

Issue:  S. Amdt. 149 to H.R. 1  Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011, in the nature of a substitute.  [Democratic Plan]  Question:  On passage (3/5 required).

Result:  Failed 42 to 58.  Democrat selected vote.

Bill Summary:  Provides $1.1 trillion in discretionary funding for the remainder of FY 2011 (approximately 7 months).

Analysis:  This is the White House-backed, Senate Democratic alternative to the GOP plan considered in the previous Senate vote (#36). It called for approximately $50 billion or 5 percent more in FY2011 spending than the unacceptable GOP plan.

Ten Democrats crossed party lines to vote against the measure and show their support for further spending cuts.

We have assigned (good vote) to the Nays and (bad vote) to the Yeas. (P = voted present; ? = not voting; blank = not listed on roll call.)

Issue:  H.R. 514 As Amended.  FISA Sunsets Extensions Act of 2011.

Result:  Passed 86 to 12, 2 not voting. Became Public Law 112-3 (signed by the President 2-25-11).   GOP and Democrat selected vote.

Bill Summary:  FISA Sunsets Extension Act of 2011 – Amends the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 to extend until May 27, 2011, provisions concerning roving electronic surveillance orders and requests for the production of business records and other tangible things.

Analysis:  In the wake of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the Bush administration requested legislative authorization for unprecedented unconstitutional powers — aggressive wiretap authority, the ability to seize library and business records and wide-reaching surveillance power. Congress went along but excused the intrusion by including a sunset provision causing the authority to expire after a very limited time frame unless renewed.

As expected, each successive administration has insisted on renewal, and some politicians see an opportunity to make the unconstitutional grant of authority permanent.   President Obama signed this three-month measure into law (PL 112-3) on 2-25-11. On May 26, both Houses voted to extend the expiring authority for four years. (See House Roll Call 376 and Senate Vote 84.)

We have assigned (good vote) to the Nays and (bad vote) to the Yeas. (P = voted present; ? = not voting; blank = not listed on roll call.)

Read more

Issue:  S. 540 Temporary Debt Limit Extension Act.  (An unrelated measure coopted to extend the public debt limit.  Originally: A bill to designate the air route traffic control center located in Nashua, New Hampshire, as the “Patricia Clark Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center.”)

Result: Passed in House 221 to 201, 10 not voting. Became Public Law No: 113-83 (signed by the President, 2-15-2014).  Democrat selected vote.

Bill Summary:  This measure suspends the debt limit through March 15, 2015 and will set a new limit the following day based on debt increases due to normal borrowing.

Analysis:  Last October (2013), Congress suspended the debt limit, then at $16.7 trillion, until February 7 of 2014, as part of the agreement to end the partial federal shutdown. On February 8, the debt limit was reset to $17.3 trillion. As expected, continued deficit spending immediately pushed the Treasury toward default, and Congress was confronted with administration demands to suspend (or raise) the debt limit once more.

And Congress agreed. However, Congress chose the ending date for this latest temporary suspension of the debt limit to fall well after the November elections, thus passing the buck to a newly elected Congress to bring federal spending under control or to raise the debt ceiling again.

Confrontations over the debt ceiling are not the most promising means to control spending. The appropriation process provides a much better way. The Constitution gives the House complete control of the purse. The House doesn’t have to negotiate with the Senate and the president; all it need do is refuse to provide the money for particular functions and programs (as described by James Madison, the father of the Constitution, in Federalist #58).

Of course, a liberal Senate and president would still pressure the House to cave in, and they would have the help of the Establishment media. To win that battle, the House must pass separate (no omnibus or consolidated) appropriation bills that fund what must be funded but curtail spending for unconstitutional programs.

The House would then need to stand firm on those appropriation bills. A multiplicity of separate bills and topics would make it difficult for the president and Senate to reject them all. But most important, a majority of representatives would need informed support from back home in order to withstand enormous pressure from the media and party leaders.

Accordingly, we don’t see the real obstacle to controlling federal spending as a big-spending Senate or president. It is a House that is not serious about taming the federal monster.

Even without majority support for get-tough action in the House, individual representatives should stand firm against “business as usual.” And the periodic votes on raising the debt limit are one opportunity to stand firm. Before supporting any increase, principled representatives should demand accompanying serious progress toward fiscal and constitutional restraint. Since no such program was in the cards, the correct vote had to be nay.

President Obama had long taken the stand that he would not “bargain” for an increase in borrowing authority, insisting that the increase should be automatic, since it was necessary to finance spending already approved by prior Congresses.   House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi echoed the line: “The full faith and credit (of the United States) should be unquestioned and it is not negotiable.”

Never mind that the spending demands of President Obama himself had contributed to huge deficits, as had the agendas of prior presidents and prior Congresses. Responsible legislators must press for corrective action whenever they have the will and opportunity to do so and before economic reality completely destroys American prosperity and “the full faith and credit (of the United States).”

A “Clean” Debt-Limit Bill

The House acted first to approve S. 540, suspending the debt limit and preventing default.   In the days leading up to the vote, House Speaker John Boehner tried unsuccessfully to find enough GOP support for a debt-ceiling bill sweetened with any of several face-saving concessions to be demanded of the Senate and the president.

So the GOP leadership decided to put forward a “clean,” no-strings-attached debt-ceiling bill that would garner Democratic support.   Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi immediately applauded the GOP decision.

On February 11, only 28 Republicans voted for the measure. Unfortunately, this does not mean that most of the other 199 GOP who voted nay were in any way tough constitutionalists.   So we do not score the House Republicans on this one. (However, we score both the Senate Republicans and the Senate Democrats on their votes on cloture (Senate vote #33), requiring 3/5 for approval.)

The House Democratic vote, on the other hand, was 193 to 2, with 5 not voting. We give credit to the two Democrats (Georgia’s John Barrow and Utah’s Jim Matheson) who voted nay, in opposition to their party majority and leadership.

We have assigned (good vote) to the Nays and (bad vote) to the Yeas. (P = voted present; ? = not voting; blank = not listed on roll call.)

Issue: H.R.8  American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012.  Question:  On passage of H.R. 8, as amended (3/5 vote required).

Result: Passed, 89 to 8, 3 not voting. Became Public Law 112-240 (signed by the President 1-2-13).  GOP and Democrats scored.

Bill Summary:  A complex measure addressing multiple topics, including: The act made permanent the expiring “Bush-era” tax cuts, except for a top bracket of taxpayers — individuals with incomes over $250,000 and couples with $300,000.   The two-year old cut to Social Security payroll taxes was not extended. Federal unemployment benefits were extended for a year without a budget offset elsewhere. The “compromise” cancelled a 27 percent cut in Medicare payments to doctors. The act also delayed the budget sequestration created by the Budget Control Act of 2011 for two months.

Analysis:  This bi-partisan “compromise” followed days of negotiations by Senate leaders and the Obama administration to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff (a combination of expiring tax cuts, an expiring Social Security payroll tax cut, imposition of a sequester on spending, and pushing the debt ceiling).   The Senate gave the New Year’s Day “compromise” overwhelming support, 40 Republicans voting in favor, while only 3 Democrats and 5 Republicans voted against it.

While H.R. 8, as amended in the Senate, also subsequently passed that same day in the House (and was signed into law the next), a majority of the House Republicans opposed it. A substantial number of House Republicans were posturing as fiscal conservatives (unfortunately, not as constitutionalists), insisting on using House leverage to push through spending cuts. However, in the year-end 2012 fiscal cliff negotiations, the GOP leadership sold them (and America) out. According to CQ Roll Call (1-16-13):

“The tax bill that postponed the fiscal cliff got through on New Year’s Day with only 35 percent support from the GOP, and half as many Republicans voted for it (85) as did Democrats (172).”

 An obvious complaint was that the “compromise” did very little to address spending and caved in to President Obama’s socialist rhetoric that the “rich” needed to pay a greater share of the federal burden. Never mind that the burden came from an explosion in unconstitutional programs. Or that the proposal for a graduated, progressive income tax came straight from Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto.

The “compromise” failed entirely to address the federal government’s longer term financial crisis — the rapid rise in entitlement spending on health care and income security for the elderly.   And, of course, there was no effort to conform government programs to those authorized by the Constitution.

So after months of high-profile partisan squabbling, America was still on the road to fiscal disaster. Even the much-hyped scheduled sequester would make only a small dent in spending.

We have assigned (good vote) to the Nays and (bad vote) to the Yeas. (P = voted present; ? = not voting; blank = not listed on roll call.)

Issue:  H.R. 5949 To extend the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 for five years. Sponsor: Lamar Smith (R-TX).  Question:  On passage (3/5 vote required).

Result: Passed, 73 to 23, 4 not voting. Became Public Law 112-238 (signed by the President 12-30-12). Republicans scored.

Bill Summary: Extends the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act of 2008 from December 31, 2012 to December 31, 2017. The FISA Amendments Act of 2008 sets the rules for monitoring the electronic communications of suspected terrorists overseas who are talking with people in the United States.

Analysis:  This authority has permitted the warrantless eavesdropping on the domestic phone calls and email of American citizens.

The House passed this measure in September. The Senate waited until 4 days before the previous authorizations were due to elapse. As an indication of the importance placed by the Insider Establishment on preserving this authority, this was the first time in 49 years that the Senate has passed legislation between Christmas and the end of the year.

If the federal government really needed such overreaching authority for a determined effort to protect America from terrorism, it would be one thing. But there are several reasons why the ostensible motivations and the war on terror are suspect.

For one, the original Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was introduced in 1977 by Senator Ted Kennedy, an opponent of the many layers of domestic internal security at the time. (The following year, the Kennedy bill was signed into law by President Carter –—who was conducting an all out war on our national security.) See also, below.

We have assigned (good vote) to the Nays and (bad vote) to the Yeas. (P = voted present; ? = not voting; blank = not listed on roll call.)

Read more

Issue: H.R. 6156 Russia and Moldova Jackson-Vanik Repeal and Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law AccountabilityAct of 2012.

Result: Passed 92 to 4, 4 not voting. Became Public Law 112-208 (signed by the President 12-14-12).  GOP and Democrats scored.

Bill Summary: Authorizes the president to lift the Jackson-Vanik discriminatory trade restrictions against the Russian Federation. Establishes permanent normal trade relations with the Russia Federation upon its ascension to the WTO. Calls for sanctions against whoever was involved with the death of anti-corruption activist Sergei Magnitsky.

Analysis:  This act would officially end restrictions on trade with Moscow that had been in place since January of 1975. Although regularly waived by the president, the Jackson-Vanik restrictions on trade with non-market economies had been established by Congress in large part to protest Soviet barriers to Jewish emigration.

Our primary objection to H.R. 6156 is not that it violates the Constitution. Our objection is to the ongoing influence of international elites to use trade to the benefit of favored corporations and America’s enemies.

Once Russia was slated to become a member of the WTO in August of 2012, the globalist corporate CEOs at the Business Roundtable began to champion the repeal of the 1974 Jackson-Vanik Act. Doug Oberhelman, Chairman of the Roundtable’s international engagement committee and CEO of Caterpillar Inc. (a CFR corporate member) argued that seizing trade opportunities with Russia would “support the U.S. economy and American jobs.”   Note: Oberhelman is also a director of the influential World Resources Institute, an eco-activist think tank created in 1982 with Insider foundation support.

The internationalist sponsors of this potentially sensitive issue put it off until the lame duck to insulate congressmen from any adverse voter reaction over the poor relations between Washington and Moscow. The lame-duck, GOP-led House initiated the repeal. On November 16, the House overwhelmingly supported the repeal, 365 to 43. Only six Republicans voted nay.   A few weeks later, the measure sailed through the Democratic-controlled Senate by a vote of 92 to 4. [See Senate Vote #223 (12-6-12).] On December 14, President Obama signed it into law.

One representative who spoke against the normalization of trade relations was Minnesota Democrat Betty McCollum. McCollum argued that the “legislation sends the wrong message, rewarding [Russia’s] President Putin with trade privileges at a time when he is crushing pro-democracy voices at home and arming the murderous Assad regime in Syria.”

Americans, who have been told repeatedly that the Cold War is over, should also be concerned over Russia’s announced plans to modernize its navy with new aircraft carriers and ballistic missile submarines. The Russian navy says it intends to establish several resupply bases abroad and has been negotiating their reestablishment in Cuba and Vietnam.

We have assigned (good vote) to the Nays and (bad vote) to the Yeas. (P = voted present; ? = not voting; blank = not listed on roll call.)

Issue: Treaty Doc. 112-7; The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 13, 2006, and signed by the United States of America on June 30, 2009.  Question:  On the Resolution of Ratification (2/3 required).

Result:  Rejected, 61 yeas to 38 nays, 1 not voting. GOP and Democrats scored.

Summary:   State parties to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities are required to promote, protect, and ensure the full enjoyment of human rights by persons with disabilities and ensure that they enjoy full equality under the law. The Convention requires that domestic legislation address specific steps to ensure equality of opportunity, such as mandating special access for disabled persons, and the repealing of discriminatory legislation.

The Convention sets up an international Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to receive periodic reports from State parties on progress made in implementing the Convention (articles 34 to 39). An 18-article Optional Protocol on Communications allows individuals and groups to petition that Committee once all national recourse procedure have been exhausted.

Analysis:  The Obama administration signed this treaty for the U.S. in 2009, but it must be ratified by a two-thirds vote of the U.S. Senate before the U.S. becomes a party.

Proponents of the treaty claim that it was modeled after the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act and requires no changes to federal law. However, that is no big comfort, as the aforementioned act was a major unconstitutional leap in regulatory overreach by the federal government. Ratification of the treaty would make it more difficult to correct U.S. law. It is wrong on several counts to ratify a UN treaty that cedes U.S. authority over domestic matters to unelected, unaccountable UN bureaucrats in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

As with other UN treaties, the purported objectives are not the real agenda driving this treaty. The real agenda is to allow the internationalist-created and -dominated UN to become, step by step, the new global authority for domestic law, not the U.S. Constitution.

These UN conventions are promoted by a combination of internationalists and their revolutionary socialist brethren. As noted above, the convention empowers “individuals and groups” (read radical NGOs) to bring their complaints to an international tribunal.

Proponents of the treaty organized an intense lobbying campaign, and the Obama administration pressured individual senators to support ratification. There were no defectors among the Democrats. Opposition was carried entirely by enough of the Senate Republicans to deny proponents a two-thirds majority. Opponents objected properly to internationalist tactic of promoting power grabs in a lame duck session, thus insulating politicians from immediate voter reprisal.

However, like the Terminator, the Internationalists will be back when the time is ripe and they have preset the dials. Serious opponents must go on the offensive and target the UN and the Internationalist game plan. Otherwise, as Napoleon observed, “the purely defensive is doomed to defeat.”

We have assigned (good vote) to the Nays and (bad vote) to the Yeas. (P = voted present; ? = not voting; blank = not listed on roll call.)