Which senators voted for and against the Maritime Drug Enforcement Act of 1986?

1. What the MDLEA actually did — and where it came from

Congress bundled the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Prosecution Improvements Act into larger 1986 drug‑law packages called the Anti‑Drug Abuse Act and related Senate bills; the provision made it unlawful to manufacture, distribute or possess controlled substances aboard U.S. vessels and vessels subject to U.S. jurisdiction, and it greatly broadened Coast Guard and prosecutorial reach on the high seas ^{[1] [3] [4]}. Legal commentary at the time and since treats the MDLEA as a deliberate congressional expansion of maritime jurisdiction to interdict international narcotics trafficking ^[2].

2. Vote totals cited in secondary posts — treat with caution

Social posts and some unsourced claims assert an overwhelming congressional margin (e.g., “House approved it 392‑16 and Senate approved it 97‑2”) and tie specific senators such as Chuck Schumer to “yes” votes ^[5]. The available documents in this set do not corroborate a specific roll‑call with those exact figures; the authoritative bill pages and statutory texts here describe the provisions and law numbers but do not include a Senate roll‑call list of individual senators’ votes ^{[1] [3] [6]}.

3. Where to find definitive roll‑call data (not in supplied sources)

Authoritative roll‑call information would normally come from Congress.gov roll call records or the Senate legislative history for the relevant bill numbers (e.g., S.2850, S.2878, H.R.5484) and the Congressional Record for floor votes ^{[3] [1] [4]}. The current set links the bill entries but does not include a roll‑call page or the Congressional Record excerpts showing which senators voted yea or nay on the MDLEA language ^{[3] [1]}.

4. Legal and political context matters

Contemporary legal analysis treated the MDLEA as part of a bipartisan 1980s “war on drugs” package; scholars noted its novel reach — boarding foreign‑flag vessels on the high seas and prosecuting foreign nationals in certain circumstances — and raised constitutional and international‑law questions that continue to be litigated ^{[2] [7]}. That bipartisan framing explains why some summaries describe broad support, but “bipartisan support” as a summary of tone is not the same as a substitute for an itemized roll call ^{[8] [2]}.

5. How to verify individual senator votes (next steps)

To produce an authoritative list of which senators voted for and against the MDLEA provisions you should consult primary roll‑call sources: the roll call pages on Congress.gov for S.2850/S.2878 and the House bill H.R.5484 (the entries exist in this set but lack vote detail) and the Congressional Record for the 99th Congress floor proceedings ^{[3] [1] [4]}. The supplied sources point to the correct bills but do not themselves publish the roll‑call breakdown.

6. Transparency and misinformation risk

Because social posts sometimes repeat precise vote totals and name individual senators without linking to Congressional Record roll calls, those posts can mislead if not corroborated by the official roll‑call record; the materials here underline the statute’s scope but do not confirm the cited vote counts or individual votes ^{[5] [1] [3]}. Readers should treat any single un‑sourced claim about a lawmaker’s vote as provisional until a Congressional Record roll call or Congress.gov vote page is cited (not found in current reporting).

Limitations: This report relies solely on the supplied search results. The bill pages and statutory texts describing MDLEA are present ^{[1] [3] [6]}, as is legal analysis ^[2], but an explicit roll‑call listing of every senator’s yea or nay is not included among these sources (not found in current reporting).