the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that changed the way the federal government makes student loans. January 6 On January 6, 2021, Cotton released a statement repudiating the attack on the Capitol: Last summer, as insurrection gripped the streets, I called to send in the troops if necessary to restore order. Today, insurrectionists occupied our Capitol. Fortunately, the Capitol Police and other law-enforcement agencies restored order without the need for federal troops. But the principle remains the same: no quarter for insurrectionists. Those who attacked the Capitol today should face the full extent of federal law. He subsequently repeated his earlier description of those involved as "insurrectionists" and said they should be brought to justice. On May 28, 2021, Cotton voted against creating an independent commission to investigate the 2021 United States Capitol attack. Ranked-choice voting After Democrat Mary Peltola won the 2022 Alaska's at-large congressional district special election, defeating former Alaska governor and Republican Sarah Palin, Cotton blasted the ranked-choice voting system that Alaska used to conduct its election, writing: "60% of Alaska voters voted for a Republican, but thanks to a convoluted process and ballot exhaustion—which disenfranchises voters—a Democrat won". Foreign policy views Cotton, through his foreign policy views, has been characterized as a war hawk. During a February 5, 2015, Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Cotton called for housing more prisoners at Guantanamo Bay instead of closing it. He said of the detainees in the camp, "every last one them can rot in hell, but as long as they don't do that they can rot in Guantanamo Bay". The following June, he was one of 21 Senate Republicans to oppose an amendment to the 2016 Defense Authorization Act that would impair any future president's ability to authorize torture. The amendment, which passed, had bipartisan support and was sponsored by John McCain and Dianne Feinstein. In September 2016, Cotton was one of 34 senators to sign a letter to United States secretary of state John Kerry advocating that the United States use "all available tools to dissuade Russia from continuing its airstrikes in Syria" from an Iranian airbase near Hamadan "that are clearly not in our interest" and stating that there should be clear enforcement by the US of the airstrikes violating "a legally binding Security Council Resolution" on Iran. In July 2017, Cotton voted in favor of the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act that grouped