Congressman Sean Casten’s six town hall meetings on Saturday were featured in an exclusive story in POLITICO by a reporter who attended all six.

The article, published late Sunday afternoon, reveals much including Casten did not ever support Bill Clinton for President, and has his own criticisms of the media.

It’s an interesting read. Here is the link:

• https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/06/casten-trump-impeachment-town-hall-031212

Casten’s Retweet Contains Erroneous Information in Attachment and Fiscal Year 2020 Budget

While in transit between town halls on Saturday, Congressman Casten, through his political Twitter ID, included this attachment in a retweet of Congressman David Cicilline (D, RI):

The House Democrats are trying to say they’ve done lots for the country, but the Senate has not.

COMMENTARY: To apply discernment, McHenry County Blog researched the 28 items on the slide, which the footnote states is from the office of House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D, MD). Here is what was found:

• The Bipartisan Budget Act passed the Senate on August 1 and was signed into law on August 2.
• Taking the Hoyer slide and adding a little information, note the following additional facts, particularly the number of partisan legislation the Democrats in the House passed:

Bill #	Description	# of GOP Votes Final Passage
H.R. 987	Protecting Access to Affordable Health Care, Lowering Rx Drug Prices	5
H.R. 1	The For the People Act	0
H.R. 5	Equality Act	8
H.R. 6	American Dream and Promise Act	7
H.R. 7	Paycheck Fairness Act	7
H.R. 8	Bipartisan Background Checks Act	8
H.R. 1112	Enhanced Bacground Checks Act	3
H.R. 9	Climate Action Now act	3
H.R. 582	Raise the Wage Act	3
H.R. 3877	Bipartisan Budget Act (passed Senate, Law)	65
Multi	Approiations Bills that Cover 96% of Government	N/A
H.R. 2722	Securing America’s Federal Election Act	1
H.R. 1585	Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act	33
H.R. 397	Butch Lewis Act (Rehabilitation for Multiemployer Pensions Act of 2019)	29
H.R. 1994	SECURE (Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement) Act	187
H.R. 1500	Consumers First Act	0
H.R. 1423	FAIR (Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal) Act	2
H.R. 1644	Save the Internet Act	1
H.R. 840	Veterans’ Access to Child Care Act	178
H.R. 1146	Blocking Drilling in Coastal Communities and ANWR	4
H.R. 3239	Responding to the Humanitarian Situation at the Border	1
H.R. 3494	FY20 Intelligence Authorization Act	171
H.R. 676	NATO Support Act	149
H.R. 549	Venezuela TPS Act	39
H.R. 790	Federal Civilian Workforce Pay Raise Fairness Act	29
H.R. 31	Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act	Voice Vote
H.R. 1595	SAFE (Secure And Fair Enforcement) Banking Act	91 Only passed on 9/25
H.R. 748	Middle Class Health Benefits Tax Repeal Act	189

• No one can fault the Senate, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, of holding up passage of bills that were partisan, and every bill passed by the House with fewer than 10 Republican votes is partisan
• Both Democrats and Republicans share the blame that fiscal year 2020, which started October 1, began without a budget in place. Here are additional facts the Hoyer graph left out concerning the budget:
  • Defense Department Appropriations Bills (H.R. 2500/S.1790)
    • Both House and Senate passed separate versions of the bill during the summer
    • Gone to Conference Committee to resolve differences between the House and Senate bills
    • Lauren Underwood is part of the conference from the House
    • Senate resolution votes of instruction for the Conference Committee taken through 9/25
  • H.R. 2740 (Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Defense, State, Foreign Operations, and Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act, 2020)
    • Cloture vote taken in the Senate on 9/18
    • Cloture failed 51-44, and a 3/5 (60) vote was needed. Only two Democrats voted for cloture, and for parliamentary reasons, McConnell and Senator Rand Paul voted with the Democrats.
    • The Senate rejected the House-passed version as is
  • Other Appropriations bills need to be passed by the Senate, and then conference committees as needed

So with all of those changes, let’s see how the slide looks now:

The Senate, and the majority Republicans, do need to act upon the items not marked out above. The Appropriations bills fund the federal government, and they need to be passed with real bipartisan compromise. All of Congress is at fault for not having a budget passed in time for the fiscal year.

But not to fear, Congress passed, and the President signed into law H.R. 4378 to keep the government running until the Appropriations bills are passed, whenever that will be. Voting grids are below and President Trump signed the bill on September 27 (House passage included 76 Republicans voting with the Democrats, a real bipartisan vote in the House passage):

Link to H.R. 4378 continuing appropriations legislation signed into law 9/27/19:

• https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/4378/text