Here’s how area House and Senate members voted on major issues during the legislative week ending Dec. 15. See the nonpartisan VoteFacts.com for more information on top congressional issues and individual voting records. Click here for previous votes.
Michael Lawler (R), District 17 (including Philipstown)
Lawler, 37, was elected to Congress in 2022. From 2021 to 2022, he was a Republican member of the state Assembly from the 97th district in Rockland County. A graduate of Suffern High School, he holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting and finance from Manhattan College. He is a former director of the state Republican Party and former deputy town supervisor of Orangetown.
Pat Ryan (D), District 18 (including Beacon)
Ryan, 41, was elected to Congress in 2022. Formerly the county executive of Ulster, he grew up in Kingston and holds a bachelor’s degree in international politics from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and a master’s degree in security studies from Georgetown. Ryan served in the U.S. Army as a combat intelligence officer from 2004 to 2009, including two tours in Iraq. He is also a former technology executive.
Republican Search for Impeachment Evidence
On a party-line vote of 221 Republicans voting yes and 212 Democrats voting no, the House on Dec. 13 adopted a resolution (H Res 918) empowering three committees to formally investigate allegations that could lead to impeachment charges that President Biden has committed high crimes and misdemeanors. The vote gives the Judiciary, Ways and Means and Oversight and Accountability committees authority to enforce subpoenas in their pursuit of evidence against Biden during his time as vice president, a private citizen and now president.
The Republican-controlled Rules Committee prevented any attempt to amend the resolution. Among the nine proposed Democratic amendments it rejected was one requiring impeachment investigators to conduct at least one public hearing during their open-ended probe.
Republicans have accused Biden of impeachable offenses since his second day in office, Jan. 21, 2021, when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., introduced an impeachment resolution that was shelved in the Judiciary Committee, then controlled by Democrats, for the remainder of the 117th Congress.
This year, with the House under GOP control, committees including Judiciary and Oversight and Accountability have collected tens of thousands of pages of documents and conducted dozens of closed-door interviews, largely exploring whether Biden was involved in his son Hunter’s business dealings overseas. The Republicans have yet to present evidence of wrongdoing by the president. The only financial transactions related to Joe Biden they have uncovered include three checks totaling about $4,140 he received while a private citizen in 2018 from Hunter Biden’s law firm, Owasco PC, to pay off a loan for a truck purchase by Hunter. The Republicans also question the $200,000 the president received in 2018 from his brother, James, as a loan repayment.
Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) said: “Short of declaring war, impeachment is the most serious act that Congress can take. It must be confined to the narrow grounds established by the Constitution and never used to settle political differences. However, the Democrats would have us simply turn a blind eye to mounting evidence of a family influence-peddling scheme that implicates the president. This we cannot do. We owe it to the country to get to the bottom of these allegations, and that requires the House to objectively invoke its full investigatory powers, respect the due process rights of all involved, and lay all of the facts before the American people.”
James Comer (R-Ky.), chair of the Oversight and Accountability Committee, said: “We are now at a pivotal moment in our investigation. We will soon depose and interview several members of the Biden family and their associates about these influence-peddling schemes, but we are facing obstruction from the White House. The White House is seeking to block key testimony from current and former White House staff. It is also withholding thousands of records from Joe Biden’s time as vice president. Joe Biden must be held accountable for his lies, corruption and obstruction.”
Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) said: “Since there is no evidence, now we are going to move the goalposts, claiming an impeachment inquiry is necessary to gather more evidence, but Chairman Comer himself said earlier this year that he had received 100 percent compliance from the administration, and they can only cite two low-level career officials at the Department of Justice who have not testified….Just this morning, Hunter Biden showed up to the Capitol ready to provide evidence. The Republicans refused to take his testimony. How can you sit there saying you need more evidence when you prevent the central witness in the investigation from giving you evidence?”
Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said: “We are here for one reason and one reason alone: Donald Trump demanded that Republicans impeach, so they are going to impeach. These Republicans don’t work for you, the American people. They work for Donald Trump. He says, `Jump.’ They respond, ‘How high?’ This whole thing is an extreme political stunt. It has no credibility, no legitimacy, and no integrity. It is a sideshow and a distraction from the fact that Republicans have done nothing” legislatively.
A yes vote was to adopt the resolution.
Michael Lawler (R-17, including Philipstown) voted yes
Pat Ryan (D-18, including Beacon) voted no
$886 Billion for Military in 2024
Voting 310 for and 118 against, the House on Dec. 14 approved the conference report on an $886 billion defense authorization bill (HR 2670) for fiscal 2024. The bill funds a 5.2 percent pay raise for uniformed personnel and approves more than $60 billion for active-duty and retiree health care, while funding operations such as supervising the nuclear stockpile, maintaining military bases, boosting recruitment efforts, paying and caring for service personnel and their families and procuring and maintaining a deep arsenal of air, land and sea weaponry. The bill sets maximum personnel levels of 445,000 troops for the Army, 337,000 for the Navy, 320,000 for the Air Force, 172,300 for the Marine Corps and 9,400 for the Space Force. The bill establishes the office of inspector general to monitor Ukraine’s expenditure of its U.S. funding, and it extends Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act for four months beyond its scheduled expiration on Dec. 31.
The conference report omits several hard-right social-policy measures that were in the House’s original version of the bill. Among cancelled provisions are ones to prohibit the teaching of race at military schools, limit funding of medical care for transgender servicemembers and their families, eliminate the position of chief diversity officer at the Pentagon and defund a program allowing servicewomen to receive administrative leave and travel reimbursement when they find it necessary to travel to another state for an abortion.
Rob Wittman (R-Va.) said: “War is on our doorstep. With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Iran’s proxy conflict with Israel, North Korea’s long-range ballistic missile development, and China’s belligerence in the South China Sea, an axis of evil is rising again. These nations seek to challenge the security of the world that has provided our nation’s prosperity since World War II. We are answering the call with this year’s [defense budget].”
Chip Roy (R-Texas) said: “A vote for this bill is not just a bill for pay raises and support for our men and women in uniform. A vote for this bill is a perpetuation of the ‘woke’ policies undermining our military, breaking down morale, driving down recruiting and now undermining the civil liberties of the American people by not reforming FISA.”
A yes vote was to send the conference report to President Biden for his signature.
Michael Lawler (R-17, including Philipstown) voted yes
Pat Ryan (D-18, including Beacon) voted yes
SENATE
$886 Billion for Military in 2024
Voting 87 for and 13 against, the Senate on Dec. 13 approved the conference report on an $886 billion defense authorization bill (HR 2670) for fiscal 2024. In addition to provisions described in the House vote above, the bill calls for expanded U.S. support of Taiwan’s “asymmetric defense strategy” against the more powerful Peoples Republic of China; writes into law a nuclear submarine agreement among the United States, United Kingdom and Australia; and requires the Department of Defense to work closely with Australia, Japan and India to counter Chinese belligerence in the Indo-Pacific region.
The bill provides a four-month extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was slated to expire on Dec. 31, and it establishes a presidentially appointed board to review and publicly release military records of investigations into reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOs).
The bill directs the Pentagon to help Israel gain observer status in a North Atlantic Treaty Organization program that trains combat pilots for defending the NATO alliance, and it requires U.S. training of Israeli pilots for operating U.S.-supplied K-46 aerial refueling aircraft. In addition, the bill authorizes funding for U.S.-Israeli programs to develop the Iron Dome short-range rocket defense system, David’s Sling Weapon System and Arrow 3 Upper Tier Interceptor Program.
The bill also sets deadlines for the Pentagon to infuse artificial intelligence models into military operations; calls for a report to Congress on whether any products sold at commissaries were produced by countries participating in economic boycotts of Israel; mandates a report to Congress on U.S. plans to equip and train Iraqi and Kurdish Peshmerga security forces; and requires a report to Congress on U.S.-Israeli cooperation to counter unmanned aerial systems operated by Iran or Iranian proxies.
Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the bill would “strengthen America’s position in strategic competition with China through targeted improvements to critical capabilities — from long-range fires and anti-ship weapons to modernizing our nuclear triad…. It will turbocharge cooperation with Israel on future missile defense technologies and ensure our closest ally in the Middle East can access the U.S. capabilities it needs when it needs them.”
Mike Lee (R-Utah) objected to what he said were civil liberties violations in the administration of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. He said that “despite the years of calls for reform, the Senate is presented with a defense bill that continues the [FISA] status quo…. They want to rubberstamp this, and they want to look the other way. Not one reform is included in this conference report that would address the neglect of the Bill of Rights.”
A yes vote was to approve the conference report.
Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) voted yes
Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) voted yes
