Hawaii Congressional Delegation How They Voted January 16, 2026

Hawai'i Free Press

Sunday, January 18, 2026

Hawaii Congressional Delegation How They Voted January 16, 2026
By GovTrack .us @ 5:01 PM :: 120 Views :: Congressional Delegation

Punting on the Difficult Stuff

By Amy West, GovTrack.us, Jan. 16, 2026

Old Business, aka the Difficult Stuff

At least, these issues are difficult politically.

Epstein File Release

The law Congress passed and that the President signed required that all of the Department of Justice's files (excluding some that identified victims) were to be released by December 19, 2025. It's January 16, 2026 and the Department of Justice remains in violation of the law and will for the foreseeable future according to their own court filings.

Health Insurance Premium Subsidies

The House did pass a resolution last week extending the subsidies for three years. However, the House used an existing bill on a different topic with substituted language to get the job done. When the Clerk of the House sent the bill to the Senate, they sent the wrong version. If the Senate had been near an agreement on an amended replacement to the House version, this might have been an issue. But the Senate isn't near such an agreement, so the procedures necessary to get the correct version to the Senate will probably not be rushed. End result: if your premiums went up in the New Year, they're going to stay up for the foreseeable future.

Venezuela War Powers Resolution

Last week, five Republicans voted with all Democrats on a procedural vote to advance a war powers resolution about Venezuela. In the intervening days, the President publicly castigated those Republicans and privately lobbied them to change sides when the measure came up for a vote for real or to support a different kind of procedural vote to make the whole thing go away. Two of those Republicans did change their minds (Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Todd Young (R-IN)) and that, with a tie-breaking vote from the Vice President, was enough to allow 51-50 passage of a different kind of procedural vote that makes the whole thing go away.

Even Narrower Republican Majority in the House

Between resignations, deaths, health issues and some legislators simply not showing up like Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX38, the Republican majority in the House gets ever narrower. Hunt is running for Senate and has simply stopped doing his current job as a Representative in order to campaign for the Senate. He says he'll return to Washington when he's needed, but a) that's not always predictable and b) he still has a job for which he's being paid and it would be nice if he would, you know, do it.

We'd provide a count of the margin that Republicans have to work with, except it changes constantly due to not only which Republicans are present, but also which Democrats. At the moment, the Republicans are down four members for sure: Rep. Greene resigned; Rep. LaMalfa died recently, and Reps. Murphy and Van Orden are out for medical reasons.

Appropriations

H.R. 6938: Commerce, Justice, Science; Energy and Water Development; and Interior and Environment Appropriations Act, 2026 passed the Senate 82-15. It will go to the President next for signing.
H.R. 7006: Financial Services and General Government and National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2026 passed 341-79. It still has to pass in the Senate so it is not yet done.

Other Bills

These bills are not yet law as they have only passed the House so far.

H.R. 2683: Remote Access Security Act, which would expand export control laws to include access to US technology stored on servers outside of the US, passed 369-22.
H.R. 6504: Haiti Economic Lift Program Extension Act, which would extend duty-free treatment of imports from Haiti, passed 345-45
H.R. 6500: AGOA Extension Act, which would extend existing duty-free treatment of imports from some African nations, passed 340-54.
H.R. 4593: SHOWER Act, which would make showerheads less efficient, passed 226-197.
H.R. 2988: Protecting Prudent Investment of Retirement Savings Act, which would make it harder for fiduciaries to consider environmental, social and governance issues in investing, passed 213-205.