During consideration of the National Defense Authorization Act, Representative Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) offered an amendment to prohibit deploying U.S. military forces in Syria.

The House rejected Bowman’s amendment on July 14, 2022 by a vote of 155 to 273 (Roll Call 335). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because according to the U.S. Constitution, only Congress has the authority to declare war. It is long past time to bring the troops home from Syria, especially considering that Congress never issued a declaration of war in relation to the country.

H.R. 8296, also known as the Women’s Health Protection Act of 2022, would establish that healthcare providers have a statutory right to provide abortion services, and that women have a corresponding right to obtain abortions.

The House passed H.R. 8296 on July 15, 2022 by a vote of 219 to 210 (Roll Call 360). We have assigned pluses to the nays because the right to life is the most fundamental, God-given, and unalienable right asserted in the Declaration of Independence and guaranteed by the Fifth and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

H.R. 1130 expresses the support of the House of Representatives for the applications Finland and Sweden submitted to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for joining the military alliance, and “calls on the member states of NATO to formally support the accession of Finland and Sweden into NATO,” increasing the number of NATO members from 30 to 32.

The House passed H.R. 1130 on July 18, 2022 by a vote of 394 to 18 (Roll Call 364). We have assigned pluses to the nays because NATO is based on the principle of collective security, as opposed to each country acting in its own best interests. Under the North Atlantic Treaty that established NATO in 1949, “The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them … shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them … will assist the Party or Parties so attacked.” The expansion of this entangling military alliance, which was comprised of just 12 members at the time of its founding, increases the likelihood of the United States being drawn into a military conflict.

H.R. 4346 would appropriate $54.2 billion over five years, including $52.7 billion for semiconductor research and manufacturing and $1.5 billion for 5G development and implementation, and authorizes a 25-percent tax credit for spending on semiconductor manufacturing facilities. Additionally, H.R. 4346 authorizes, over five years, $81 billion for the National Science Foundation (NSF), $67 billion for the Energy Department, $11 billion for the Commerce Department, and $9.7 billion for the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Among other actions, the bill authorizes new and existing NASA programs, requires the NSF to support research in new fields including climate change, and authorizes programs to improve underrepresented groups’ participation in STEM fields.

The House passed H.R. 4346 on July 28, 2022 by a vote of 243 to 187 (Roll Call 404). We have assigned pluses to the nays because the Constitution does not authorize Congress to fund research and development programs for the private sector. The free market, not government, is the key to technological and economic progress.

H.R. 1808 would make it illegal to own, sell, or knowingly possess a semiautomatic “assault” weapon or “large capacity” ammunition feeding devices. It would also allow law-enforcement grants to be used for state and tribal buy-back programs for guns banned by this bill.

The House passed H.R. 1808 on July 29, 2022 by a vote of 217 to 213 (Roll Call 410). We have assigned pluses to the nays because this bill is a gross violation of the U.S. Constitution, especially the Second Amendment, which recognizes that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” This is one step closer to a disarmed America — with the assistance of taxpayer dollars.

H.R. 5376 would spend at least $512 billion on federal programs, subsidies, and tax credits. This includes $369 billion for various climate-change initiatives with the goal of lowering carbon emissions by 40 percent by 2030, including $270 billion in tax credits, $27 billion in grants to state and local governments and nongovernmental organizations to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, and $9.7 billion to support zero-emission or carbon-capture technology in rural areas; $64 billion to extend expanded ObamaCare subsidies for three years; and $79.3 billion in expanded IRS funding (including to hire up to 87,000 new agents). Among other programs, the bill imposes a 15-percent minimum tax — based on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD’s) global minimum tax proposal — on corporations with at least $1 million in annual income, enacts drug-pricing changes for Medicare, and raises fee rates on energy production on public lands.

The House passed H.R. 5376 on August 12, 2022 by a vote of 220 to 207 (Roll Call 420). We have assigned pluses to the nays because Congress is failing to address its fiscally irresponsible budgeting and appropriating process that yielded a federal deficit of $1.38 trillion in fiscal 2022. Moreover, the bill advances a radical environmentalist agenda, and virtually all of its provisions fall outside the Constitution’s specified powers.

H.R. 8873, the “Presidential Election Reform Act,” would change the procedures for how presidential electoral votes are cast and counted to “prevent other future unlawful efforts to overturn Presidential elections and to ensure future peaceful transfers of Presidential power,” according to the bill. The bill would require the governor of each state to certify the state’s electors. It would also make the role of the presiding officer of the joint session count on January 6th (i.e., the vice president or, in absence thereof, the president pro tempore) simply a “ministerial” position having no discretionary power to “determine or otherwise resolve disputes concerning the proper list of electors for a State, the validity of electors for a State, or the votes of electors of a State.” Additionally, the bill raises the threshold for raising any objections to “at least one third of each House of Congress.” In a statement after voting against the bill, Representative Burgess Owens (R-Utah) said, “The Presidential Election Reform Act … tramples the constitutional duty of states to oversee elections, and continues the partisan charge to centralize power in Washington.” The House passed H.R. 8873 on September 21, 2022 by a vote of 229 to 203 (Roll Call 449). We have assigned pluses to the nays because this bill undermines election integrity, infringes upon state sovereignty, and makes changes that are inconsistent with Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution.

H.R. 6448, the “Invest to Protect Act of 2022,” would direct the Department of Justice’s office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) to award grants to county, municipal, town, village, and tribal governments that employ “fewer than 125 law enforcement officers.” The grants are intended to fund “de-escalation training for law enforcement officers” to “minimize the need for the use of force,” overtime costs, and signing and retention bonuses, among other activities. The bill would appropriate $60,000,000 for each year from 2023 through 2027.

The House passed H.R. 6448 on September 22, 2022 by a vote of 360 to 64 (Roll Call 451). We have assigned pluses to the nays because this bill undermines the local control and independence of police. The strings that come attached to such grants move the United States closer to nationalizing police — making police subordinate to federal stipulations, guidelines, and control — rather than preserving local police that are independent of the federal government. Furthermore, Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution makes no provision for federal grants, training, or guidelines for local law enforcement.

H.R. 8404 would codify the right to marry regardless of sexual orientation or race. It prohibits the states from denying marriage between two individuals on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin. This bill also repeals the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as “only a legal union between one man and one woman.”

The House passed H.R. 8404 on December 8, 2022 by a vote of 258 to 169 (Roll Call 513). We have assigned pluses to the nays because this Marxist-inspired bill violates state sovereignty. Additionally, it embraces “woke” culture and undermines the traditional nuclear family. Rights come from God, not government.

H.R. 2617 would authorize $1.6 trillion for regular fiscal 2023 discretionary federal spending and another $100 billion for a wide variety of other legislation (nearly $47 billion for aid to Ukraine and roughly $38 billion for U.S. natural disasters) that was tacked onto the bill in last-minute negotiations by congressional leaders. Looking at the big picture, this bill minimizes congressional accountability to the voters by combining the 2023 spending approval for 15 Cabinet departments and eight federal agencies into only one bill. On top of that, the federal budget deficit for 2023 is expected to be one trillion dollars.

The House passed H.R. 2617 on December 23, 2022 by a vote of 225 to 201 (Roll Call 549). We have assigned pluses to the nays because passage of this largely unconstitutional bill in the context of a projected $1 trillion 2023 federal budget deficit reveals a high degree of fiscal irresponsibility and unaccountability to the voters by Congress. This Omnibus 2023 spending bill should have been punted by this “lame duck” session of Congress into the next Congress, where it would have been subject to revision by the members selected by the voters on November 8, 2022.