House votes
House Vote 1: REGULATING HEALTH CARE WORKPLACES: The House has passed the Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act (H.R. 1195), sponsored by Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., to require the Labor Department to make a new occupational safety and health standard for preventing workplace violence in the health care and social services sectors. Courtney said of the need for the standard: "Every year we fail to address this situation, we are condemning thousands of nurses, doctors, aides, EMTs, and social workers to suffer preventable injuries, sometimes fatal, on the job." An opponent, Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., said the bill "is particularly ill-timed and ill-advised as it forces OSHA to issue an interim final rule on workplace violence within 1 year, which will significantly strain healthcare facilities that are heroically working on the front lines." The vote, on April 16, was 254 yeas to 166 nays.