Vote Descriptions | Representatives' Votes

1. Increase Minimum Wage, but Repeal Estate Tax (Defeated) (07/29/2006, Roll Call No. 425)

The Estate Tax and Extension of Tax Relief Act of 2006 (H.R. 5970), sponsored by Rep. Bill Thomas (R-Calif.), was used to entice Democratic support. To counter another bid by Democrats to have the House vote on a minimum wage increase, the Republican leadership added the minimum wage provision to a full repeal of the estate tax and extension of other tax cuts. Elimination of the estate tax under H.R. 5970 would benefit a small number of the richest estates, worth more than $5 million each, or $10 million for couples, with an estimated cost to the U.S. treasury of $750 million. Most Democrats refused to bite; however, Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) made an effort to strip out all provisions except the minimum wage – but his motion was defeated, 190-220. Ultimately, the Republicans were able to push H.R. 5970 through the House.  A vote against the bill was correct. More

2. Reversing the Ban on Stem Cell Research (Defeated) (07/19/2006, Roll Call No. 388)

The Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act (H.R. 810), sponsored by Rep. Michael Castle (R-Del.) proposed to reverse the Bush administration's ban on federal funding of stem cell research. It would have permitted government research and support of stem cell studies using conventional embryos slated for destruction at fertility clinics, only if the embryos are donated with written informed consent and without any financial inducements. The Secretary of Health and Human Services would also have to issue guidelines and require annual reports. After passing the House and Senate, the bill drew the only presidential veto of George W. Bush's term thus far. The attempt to override the veto on July 19, 2006 fell short of the two-thirds vote required. A vote in support of the veto override was correct. More

3. Marriage Discrimination in U.S. Constitution (Defeated) (07/18/2006, Roll Call No. 378)

Proposing an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States Relating to Marriage (H.J. Res. 88), sponsored by Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.); the measure failed to get a required two-thirds majority vote. This resolution proposed a Constitutional amendment that declared marriage as existing between only a man and woman and would have prevented the states from allowing same-sex couples to marry by stating that no state constitution can be construed to allow same sex marriage. Marriage is a fundamental human right, as well as a fundamental Constitutional right, and should be treated as such regardless of sexual orientation or affectional preference. Currently, same sex couples -- and their children -- are denied more than a thousand government benefits that are available to heterosexual couples. The amendment, if passed by Congress and ratified by three-fourths of the states, would enshrine discrimination in the Constitution -- restricting rather than expanding freedoms, contrary to the history of our constitutional amendments.  A vote against the resolution was correct. More

4. Amendment to VRA Limiting Voting Rights (Defeated) (06/28/2006, Roll Call No. 340)

Reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006 (H.R. 9), sponsored by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), passed the House. Debate around this important measure involved the defeat of four weakening amendments that would have eased restrictions in districts with a history of voter discrimination, ended a requirement for bilingual ballots in districts with large bilingual populations and reduced the life of the new act from 25 to 10 years, and certain jurisdictions would have been allowed to make changes to their voting procedures without pre-clearance from federal authorities. The amendment (Stearns #1) offered by Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) to a Department of Justice appropriations bill (H.R. 5672) would have restricted the Department from using any funds to provide language assistance to voters. A vote against the amendment was correct. More

5. Prevent Minimum Wage Increase (Passed) (06/22/2006, Roll Call No. 313)

In one of many efforts over the last two years, Democrats attempted to increase the minimum wage by amending a bill that the Republican leadership had marked as one of their priorities for passage. This time, it was The Estate Tax Relief Act of 2006 (H.R. 5638) which would have repealed the estate tax – at significant loss to federal programs. The Republican chair ruled that the minimum wage amendment could not be offered. Democrats appealed the ruling, but a Republican maneuver to block the vote was successful. The amendment proposed an increase from the current $5.15 to $7.25 over 18 months. All Republicans joined to stop the Democratic amendment through this parliamentary tactic. The effort to add the minimum wage was blocked. A vote against the motion was correct. More

6. Felony Immigration/Building Border Fence (Passed) (12/16/2005, Roll Call No. 661)

12/16/2005 -- passed.

The Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005 (H.R. 4437), sponsored by Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), was adopted in the House. Among many questionable provisions, this legislation would make the undocumented status of immigrant workers an aggravated felony and prohibits 11 million undocumented workers in the U.S. from ever winning legal status. In addition, it would militarize the border by allowing immediate expulsion of persons suspected of being undocumented immigrants, without any right to judicial review. The legislation subjects anyone -- including U.S. citizens -- to verification of work eligibility through a government database. H.R. 4437 harms civil liberties without resolving any of the problems of illegal immigration. A vote against the bill was correct. More

7. Squeezing Social Spending II (Passed) (12/14/2005, Roll Call No. 628)

Republican budget cutters ultimately prevailed on Labor-HHS- Education Appropriations, FY '06 Conference (H.R. 3010). A final vote on the conference report for the Labor-HHS-ED appropriations approved many deep cuts in social spending, including a $10.1 billion cut over ten years to Medicaid, a $4.9 billion cut to child support enforcement over ten years, a $1 billion increase to TANF (welfare) child care programs (but $10 billion short to meet stiffer work requirements) and a funding delay that will require disabled Supplemental Security recipients to wait much longer to receive benefits. A vote against the bill was correct. More

8. PATRIOT Act Expansion and Reauthorization (Passed) (12/14/2005, Roll Call No. 627)

The so-called USA PATRIOT and Terrorism Prevention Reauthorization Act of 2005 (H.R. 4659), sponsored by Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), was adopted by the House, which failed to add reasonable and necessary safeguards to protect civil liberties. A NOW resolution adopted at the 2005 Conference opposed the Act, citing concerns with potential violations of due process, summary deportations without evidence of a crime, abolition of a fair hearing in certain circumstances, allowing an "expedited removal" procedure and many other provisions that undermine our civil liberties. The act allows the government to obtain a wide variety of private confidential records using National Security secret court orders; it expands the death penalty, limits protest rights at major events and permits many intrusions by government into personal private records. A vote against the bill was correct. More

9. Reward the Rich, Drain the Treasury (Passed) (12/08/2005, Roll Call No. 621)

12/08/2005 -- passed.

Republican leaders continued their aggressive effort to protect earlier tax cuts and enact even more by incorporating some $56 billion in cuts into a budget reconciliation bill that had to be passed to prevent government shutdown. The so-called Tax Relief Extension Reconciliation Act (H.R. 4297), sponsored by House Ways and Means Chair Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., allotted three-quarters of the tax cut benefits to investors who earn more than $100,000 a year, while middle income families received only two percent of the benefits of capital gains and dividend rate cuts, estimated at about $7 annually. A vote against the bill was correct. More

10. Sense of the House: Withdraw from Iraq (Defeated) (11/19/2005, Roll Call No. 608)

A non-binding resolution expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq should be terminated immediately (H. Res. 571), sponsored by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) was overwhelmingly defeated. Reps. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.), Jose Serrano (D-N.Y.) and Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) voted for the resolution. A vote in support of the resolution was correct. More

11. Cutting Human Needs Programs (Passed) (11/18/2005, Roll Call No. 601)

11/18/2005 -- passed.

Budget Reconciliation Act (H.R. 4241), the enactment of the 2006 Budget Resolution, introduced by Rep. Nussle (D-Iowa), reduced spending levels by $48.5 billion, containing cuts of $14.3 billion for student loans, slashing child support enforcement spending by $4.9, and eliminating more than $11 billion in Medicaid federal matching funds. These ill-advised cuts will harm single parents who count on receiving monthly child support payments, students who depend upon federal student loan assistance, poor women and children for whom Medicaid is their only source of health care and many other vulnerable groups. A vote against the legislation was correct. More

12. Squeezing Social Spending I (Defeated) (11/17/2005, Roll Call No. 598)

11/17/2005 -- defeated.

Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations, FY '06 Conference (H.R. 3010), sponsored by Rep. Ralph Regula (R-Ohio), failed. This $602 billion spending bill for the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education departments and other agencies, proposed to authorize funds well below the previous year's spending levels. Most negatively affected would have been programs for job training and employment assistance, student loans, health care initiatives for rural and urban areas, and the No Child Left Behind Act education assistance. The cuts would make it difficult and in some cases impossible to meet needs, disproportionately impacting low income families, students, people of color and poor single women with children. The vote to reject this appropriations measure was one of the few victories—however brief—for advocates of human needs programs. More

13. Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization (Passed) (09/28/2005, Roll Call No. 501)

VICTORY! The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) Reauthorization/Department of Justice Appropriations Authorization Act, FY '06 – '07 (S. 3402) was incorporated into appropriations measure for the Department of Justice and was adopted. Sponsored by Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., the bill's provisions extended the funding for core programs that support important services for battered women (and men), including STOP (Services, Training, Officers, Prosecutors) grants, state formula grants that support collaborations and cross training; funding of the Family Violence and Prevention Services Act (FVPSA); funding for emergency battered women's shelters and services; rural grants that address DV, sexual assault and child abuse. Also enacted were new programs such as Long Term Stability for Victims housing program. The bill also protected Victims of Crime Act Funds from elimination for the fiscal year; that program is a source of support for services that help victims cope with the aftermath of violent crime. A vote in support of the legislation was correct. More

14. Expanding Hate Crimes Laws (Passed) (09/14/2005, Roll Call No. 469)

It was a temporary victory that the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crime Prevention Act (H. Amdt. 544, previously H.R. 2662) was adopted, although it was never passed by the Senate and therefore did not ultimately become law. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) offered his bill (H.R. 2662) as an amendment to the Children's Safety Act of 2005 (H.R. 3132.) The amendment would extend the protection of federal criminal civil rights statutes to include violent acts against a person because of a person's sexual orientation, gender identity, sex or disability. The measure would also remove restrictive provisions which had previously limited enforcement to only those hate crimes committed against persons engaged in federally-protected activities such as voting. NOW has attempted for the past 18 years to gain inclusion in federal criminal statutes a prohibition against hate crimes committed against women; such a prohibition would cover those most heinous crimes of rape, serial rape, mutilation and other instances where a hatred of women is expressly demonstrated, such as in the recent Amish school shootings. Passed in the House, but the Senate failed to concur in the amendment and it ultimately failed passage. A vote in support of the amendment was correct. More

15. Giving Multinational Corporations Carte Blanche (Passed) (07/28/2005, Roll Call No. 443)

The Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), sponsored by Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), was a priority of the Bush administration and modeled after the North American Trade Agreement (NAFTA)--which many assert has caused lost jobs and declining wages in the U.S. In addition to cutting tariffs on trade between the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the U.S., the bill contains new protections for investors. Most regrettably, H.R. 3045 weakens environmental protections and workers' rights. DR-CAFTA will undermine the safety, economic health and livelihood of communities and poor farmers in those countries, and will have a negative economic impact on women and their families, both here and in the affected areas. A vote against the bill was correct. More

16. Denying Contraception to Injured Women Overseas (Passed) (07/19/2005, Roll Call No. 389)

07/19/2005 -- passed.

Rep. Chris Smith (R- N.J.) offered an amendment (H. Amdt. 464) to the Foreign Relations Authorizations Act, FY 06 and 07 (H.R. 2601) to deny contraception to poor women in developing countries. This measure was a callous initiative removing contraception from a list of authorized medical services that could be offered to poor women who are being treated for obstetric fistula – a serious injury involving tearing of the vaginal canal that occurs during extended labor and frequently happens to young girls whose bodies are not yet mature enough to safely deliver babies. The denial of contraception increases the risk of repeat fistula, endangering the lives of women and girls. A vote against the amendment was correct. More

17. Eliminating Special Treatment for Wal-Mart (Defeated) (06/24/2005, Roll Call No. 318)

A little-noticed amendment (H. Amdt. 367) offered by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) to the Fiscal Year 2006 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education appropriations bill (H.R. 3010) would have prohibited the Labor Department from implementing a cozy arrangement the government struck with Wal-Mart. Earlier in 2005 when Wal-Mart was cited for violations of child labor law, a settlement promised to give Wal-Mart a 15 day notice before conducting any future child labor or wage and hour investigations. Such advance notice is unprecedented, but typical of the unhealthy relationship that the Bush administration maintains with big business. Unfortunately, the amendment failed. A vote in support of the amendment was correct. More

18. Repeal Overseas Abortion Ban (Defeated) (05/25/2005, Roll Call No. 216)

Rep. Susan Davis (D-Calif.) proposed this amendment (H.Amdt. 209) to the National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 1815) to repeal the ban on abortion services for military personnel and their dependents at overseas military hospitals even if they pay for the services using their own funds (self-payment was the requirement during the Clinton administration). The overseas military abortion ban sends women soldiers seeking abortions to local clinics where they may be risking their health when medical standards are lower, or risking their lives in a country where abortion is illegal, or they have to pay their own way back to the U.S. to obtain an abortion (if they can even get permission to do so, which is not required). The ban is an insult and a clear health risk for U.S. women valiantly serving in the military overseas, denying them their constitutional right to decide whether to have an abortion. A vote in support of the amendment was correct. More

19. Helping the Rich, Shrinking Government Services (Passed) (04/28/2005, Roll Call No. 149)

04/28/2005 -- passed.

Fiscal 2006 Budget Resolution Conference Report (H. Con. Res. 95), sponsored by Rep. Jim Nussle (R-Iowa) was narrowly adopted. This resolution spells out spending and revenue objectives over a five year period, proposing $70 billion in tax cuts (primarily benefiting the wealthy) and specifying a $34.7 billion spending cut in mandatory programs (mainly human needs programs), with a devastating cut of $10 billion to Medicaid. To compensate for loss of revenues due to extensive tax cuts, the Budget Resolution would tap the Social Security Trust Fund and draw upon funds that would have gone to education, health care and homeland defense. A vote against the measure was correct. More