In short: Congress is out this week, but the silent work to gather the Democrats’ opening bid at Covid Lighting continues this week with the House on course to get their share of the $ 1.9 billion proposal as soon as next week to succeed.
In the next few days, the House Budget Committee will be drafting the final bill, based on the section by sections that the committees approved last week. This will ensure that the Democrats are in place to get the caucus on board and approve the bill as well as next week.
House President Nancy Pelosi has a margin of five votes on this bill. It is not the spring of 2020, when the economy was cratering and the uncertainty of the virus was so paralyzed for the country that legislators gathered within weeks to pass the largest stimulus bill in history with unity. The investigation into this package – even by some Democrats – is more intense. That does not mean that some Republicans will not cross the aisle and vote for it, which may give Pelosi more room to push the legislation to the floor, but look at the comments of members over the next few days while in the rest is to get. a clue as to how much of an elevator it will be for the House speaker.
The Senate Problem
For the past few weeks, House Democrats have not been working in a vacuum because they have turned Biden’s proposal into legislation. Democratic associates from the Senate Finance Committee consult with the House Ways and Means panel. The HELP Committee of the Senate works closely with the Panel on Education and Labor of the House. Aid workers were in close contact and Democratic senators made it clear – both through private remarks and public comment – that they needed the House Bill to make it work for them.
The Democrats of the House and Senate are not yet completely in unity. It is expected that changes to the House Bill will take place in the Senate, but not in a formal committee like last week in the House. Instead, the current plan for Democrats is to bring their bill – with some possible changes ironed out privately – directly to the Senate floor. This could happen in the week of March 2nd. But Democrats in the Senate have two weeks to pass their bill before unemployment benefits expire. And if they accept a bill other than the house, the house will have to go through it again before March 14th.
For those who count at home, it takes 27 days – less than a month – to figure it out.
In time, Senate Democrats will have to conclude a series of debates within the parties on the scope of this bill, whether they are all willing to spend $ 1.9 billion, or whether they are willing to pay the minimum wage up to $ 15 per hour, or they are now content with home-based handouts on stimulus checks earning individuals earning $ 75,000 and couples earning $ 100,000 the full $ 1,400, while the check amount is phased out faster for higher-earning Americans.
Democrats have largely tried to talk privately about these issues, and most are likely to vote for anything that comes to the floor, given the expectation that Americans will gain additional financial benefits. One Democratic senator told CNN last week, “Look, I’m voting for this, no matter what.” But the next three weeks can test democratic unity in a way we have not seen in a long time.
The minimum wage struggle
When Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, would become the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, no one in the leadership necessarily expected the Democrats to control a 50-50 Senate, where the Democrats want and what they need to do to potentially conflict with legislation.
“Kyrsten is working to ensure that further legal assistance is laser-based to address the immediate needs of Arizona and believes that all proposals not related to the immediate needs – such as the minimum wage increase – should be excluded from the package. be, “her spokeswoman said in a statement. to CNN last week.
Without Cinema, the Senate will not be able to pass the Covid bill, not even using the budget process that enables it to pass it with only 51 votes. Schumer has no margin of error. And the threat of Cinema could jeopardize the whole bill. Not to mention, she is not the only one who has expressed concern in this proposal about raising the minimum wage. Sen. Joe Manchin, a moderate West Virginia Democrat, is also opposed to including it. Whether this would impede his voice is not so clear.
While Schumer has repeatedly said he is working closely with Sanders to try to push it through, other members of the Democratic leadership are more sober about the dynamics.
Asked what the minimum wage would require to include the minimum wage, the majority whip Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, told reporters last week: “I do not know what it will take, but I have serious questions heard by some Democratic members that are going to be resolved. ‘
In other words, the issue of raising the minimum wage could seriously jeopardize this Covid emergency relief proposal. Include it, you lose at least one moderate senator. Leave it at that, you run the risk of losing progressive people.
One possible way out of this minimum wage struggle
It is quite possible that the issue of raising the minimum wage will not succeed in the Senate. It can save Democrats the pain of having to make this call for themselves.
These talks are already well underway. But it is possible that the Senate MP will be the one to actively pursue the issue, which will save the Democrats from making the call themselves and losing the risks.