“WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden won preliminary approval Saturday of his $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill after a bleary-eyed Senate voted 50-49 for the package along party lines, capping more than 27 hours of debate and giving Biden his first major legislative victory.
A final vote is required next week for the Democratic-controlled House to adopt the Senate version of the bill before Biden can sign it into law, but approval is expected.
‘The bottom line is this,’ Biden said in a nine-minute speech from the White House's State Dining Room praising the Senate's vote. ‘This plan puts on a path to beating this virus.’
Here are six takeaways from the marathon Senate vote and what it means for Biden and millions of Americans awaiting relief.
1. Shut out by Republicans
Biden campaigned on bipartisanship following four divisive years under Donald Trump. Yet he was not able to win over a single Senate Republican – not even moderates like Susan Collins of Maine or Lisa Murkowski of Alaska – to support legislation that will likely be less controversial than future battles on immigration, health care and infrastructure.
The Senate's approval was completely party-line, one week after the House's 219-212 vote in which no Republicans backed the bill (and two Democrats broke ranks to oppose it). The lack of bipartisan support shows that breaking through the gridlock isn't as easy as Biden predicted as a candidate.
Ten Republican senators met with Biden in the White House last month to seek a compromise. But they put forward a significantly smaller $681 billion proposal that was a non-starter for the president. He quickly abandoned talks and moved full-speed ahead on approving his legislation in full.
The White House has argued that the relief package, even without GOP support, is bipartisan because of its widespread support in the public including Republican voters. A Morning Consult this week found 76% of Americans support the bill.
‘Look, the American people strongly support what we’re doing,’ Biden said, downplaying the lack of bipartisanship. ‘That’s the key here.’
2. The Senate's all-nighter
With Republicans seeking to slow down the bill's passage with an onslaught of amendments, the Senate's debate extended more than 27 hours.
Some senators appeared to nod off at their desks, stirring in time to cast their votes on amendments. Others moved around, as if to stay awake. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., began chatting about ‘Baconators,’ a Wendy’s breakfast sandwich, as he spoke with Virginia Democrat Mark Warner about food options.
The loudest and most sustained ovation from all the senators came after Schumer praised Senate staff, cafeteria workers, custodial staff and Capitol Police, some of whom worked straight through as the session wound over parts of three days. That included the nearly 11 hours that Senate clerks were forced to read aloud the entire text of the 628-page bill as part of Wisconsin GOP Sen. Ron Johnson’s efforts to delay passage of the measure.
It marked one of the longest overnight sessions in the last few years in the Senate. The longest session, however, was one that went for over 125 hours in 1960 as senators debated a civil rights measure.
3. Manchin's outsized role leads to White House concession
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., has emerged as the most important vote in the Senate.
Anyone who thought his outsized influence in the evenly divided Senate was overstated needed only to see how the chamber came to a screeching halt when the West Virginia moderate raised questions about the size of unemployment benefits.
Manchin already effectively derailed one of Biden's Cabinet nominees. And he showed his clout again during the debate of Bidens' COVID-19 relief bill. After he objected to the $400-per-week payments, it was lowered to $300 following an hours-long delay where the senator was at the center of negotiations.
Biden personally called Manchin to keep the senator on board, Politico and NBC reported.
Expect Manchin’s role as deal-maker to only expand after the COVID relief vote.
4. $15 minimum wage fails
A faction of Democratic senators joined all Senate Republicans to defeat a proposal pushed by Sen. Bernie Sanders' proposal to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour on Friday.
The Vermont independent tried to add the provision back in Biden's COVID-19 bill, but his effort failed in a 58-42 vote with eight members of the Senate Democratic caucus voting against it.
The eight senators included both from Biden's home state of Delaware – Chris Coons and Tom Carper – as well as Manchin, New Hampshire Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Jon Tester of Montana, and Angus King, an independent from Maine who is a member of the Democratic caucus.
Biden has remained steadfast in his support of a minimum wage hike, but it's unclear how that plan can move forward without all Democrats on board. Even Sanders conceded before the vote that the COVID relief package was by far the best near-term shot to achieve the $15 threshold.
‘(The president) will use his political will to get that done,’ White House press secretary Jen Psaki vowed on Friday, though not revealing a path to accomplish that aim.
5. Price tag remains intact, a win for Biden
To fend off naysayers about the bill's hefty price tag, Biden regularly argued the biggest risk was not going ‘too big,’ but rather making the bill too small to address the scope of the pandemic.
It was a lesson learned during former President Barack Obama's first term, when Biden was vice president. Biden has said he regrets that the Obama-Biden administration did not put forward a larger stimulus in response to the Great Recession.
In the end, the president got the dollar amount he wanted this time, a full $1.9 trillion, with little variation from the bill he introduced in January.
‘The end result is essentially about the same,’ Biden told reporters. ‘I don't think any of the compromises have in any way fundamentally altered the essence of what I put in the bill in the first place.’
Components of the bill are:
► Provides most Americans earning up to $75,000 a $1,400 stimulus check.
► Extends a $300 weekly federal boost to unemployment benefits through August
► Sends $350 billion to state and local governments whose revenue has declined because of COVID-19's impact on the economy.
► Allocates $130 billion to help fully reopen schools and colleges.
► Allots $30 billion to help renters and landlords weather economic losses.
► Devotes $50 billion for small-business assistance.
► Dedicates $160 billion for vaccine development, distribution and related needs.
► Expands the child tax credit up to $3,600 per child.
6. Relief package doesn’t pass without Georgia
Elections have consequences, and the Senate’s razor-thin vote proved it.
Because no Republicans joined Democrats, passage of the bill would not have been possible were it not for Democrats’ sweep of two Senate runoff elections in Georgia on Jan. 5.
‘There is no question that the people of Georgia deserve a great deal of credit for what happened here today,’ Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., told reporters. ‘We simply would not be here. Had they not stood up in such a profound way in this historic election.’
Victories for Democratic Sens. Jon Ossoff and Warnock created a 50-50 tie in the Senate, effectively giving Democrats power because of Vice President Kamala Harris’ ability to break ties.” Read at USA Today
“A more contagious coronavirus variant first discovered in the U.K. is spreading fast in the U.S., even as the overall number of cases is leveling off there.
One analysis suggests the possibly more lethal British variant, known as B.1.1.7, accounts for more than 20 percent of new U.S. cases as of this week. Still, experts note that the low total case counts in states with a high share of B.1.1.7 are an encouraging sign.
Some state officials have continued to lift restrictions steadily, despite worry over variants and warnings from top federal health officials, like Dr. Anthony Fauci, that doing so could be premature. On Friday, he said that the country had plateaued at between 60,000 and 70,000 new cases per day, and he warned that the U.S. could be headed for yet another surge in cases.” Read more at New York Times
“Jury selection starts Monday in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, who was charged in last year's death of George Floyd. He faces second-degree unintentional murder and manslaughter charges after he knelt on Floyd's neck for nearly eight minutes in moments captured on video.” Read more at CNN
“Pope Francis' three-day visit to Iraq -- the first papal trip to the predominantly Muslim country -- ends Tuesday. He's meeting with members of the nation's dwindling Christian community, and top political and religious officials. It's his first trip overseas since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.” Read more at CNN
“Texas lifted its mask mandate, and all businesses can reopen Wednesday at full capacity. Gov. Gregg Abott announced the decision last week despite warnings against easing restrictions by federal health officials. ‘To be clear, Covid has not, like, suddenly disappeared,’ he said. ‘Covid still exists in Texas and the United States and across the globe.’” Read more at CNN
“President Biden on Sunday will sign an executive order leveraging federal resources to protect and strengthen access to the ballot as Republican legislatures around the country seek to restrict voting rights in the wake of the 2020 election.
Biden will sign an order that will direct agencies to increase access to voter registration materials and reduce barriers to voting for certain groups, including military and overseas voters, Native Americans and people with disabilities.
The president on Sunday will also speak at the Martin and Coretta King Unity Breakfast to outline his focus on voting rights. The order and speech come on the 56th anniversary of the ‘Bloody Sunday’ march in Selma, Ala. The violent clash between 600 civil rights marchers and white police officers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965 served as a catalyst for the passage of the Voting Rights Act.” Read more at The Hill
New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) listens to a question during a news conference on May 27 in Washington. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
“A former press aide of Andrew M. Cuomo says he summoned her to his dimly lit hotel room and embraced her after a work event in 2000, when Cuomo led the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and she was a consultant for the agency. The woman, Karen Hinton, says she pulled away from Cuomo, but he pulled her back toward his body, holding her before she backed away and left the room.
Two male aides who worked for Cuomo in the New York governor’s office say he routinely berated them with explicit language, making comments such as calling them ‘pussies’ and saying, ‘You have no balls.’
And three women, all of whom worked in the governor’s office as young staffers in recent years, say Cuomo quizzed them about their dating lives. They say they did not view the encounters as propositions, but rather as part of an office culture they believed was degrading to young women.
The newest accounts of Cuomo’s workplace behavior by former aides in interviews with The Washington Post come after several women have publicly accused the New York governor of inappropriate personal comments or unwelcome physical contact. The allegations have engulfed one of the country’s top Democratic officials in crisis and put a sharp focus on the workplace culture he has fostered during his three decades in public office.” Read more at Washington Post
“The district attorney investigating whether former U.S. President Donald Trump illegally interfered with Georgia’s 2020 election has hired an outside lawyer who is a national authority on racketeering, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has enlisted the help of Atlanta lawyer John Floyd, who wrote a national guide on prosecuting state racketeering cases. Floyd was hired recently to ‘provide help as needed’ on matters involving racketeering, including the Trump investigation and other cases, said the source, who has direct knowledge of the situation.
The move bolsters the team investigating Trump as Willis prepares to issue subpoenas for evidence on whether the former president and his allies broke the law in their campaign to pressure state officials to reverse his Georgia election loss. Willis has said that her office would examine potential charges including ‘solicitation of election fraud, the making of false statements to state and local governmental bodies, conspiracy, racketeering’ among other possible violations.
A representative for Trump did not respond to requests for comment.
Floyd’s appointment signals that racketeering could feature prominently in the investigation. It’s an area of law where Willis has extensive experience - including a high-profile Atlanta case where she won racketeering convictions of 11 public educators for a scheme to cheat on standardized tests.
The investigation of Trump focuses in part on his phone call to Georgia’s secretary of state, asking the secretary to ‘find’ the votes needed to overturn Trump’s election loss, based on false voter-fraud claims.
Willis - a Democrat who in January became the county’s first Black woman district attorney - will have to navigate a fraught political landscape. She faces pressure from Democrats in Atlanta and nationally to pursue an aggressive prosecution, along with scrutiny from Republicans in a state historically dominated by that party.” Read more at Reuters
“A pretrial hearing will take place Wednesday for Kyle Rittenhouse, who is accused of fatally shooting two people in August during protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin. In December, his attorney filed a motion to dismiss two of six counts his client is facing.” Read more at CNN
“A judge is expected to decide Friday whether Scott Peterson will be granted a new trial for the 2002 murder of his wife, Laci, and unborn son. Last year, the state Supreme Court overturned his death penalty and ordered the reexamination of his 2004 conviction due to potential juror misconduct.” Read more at CNN
“After decades of civil war, Colombia has created a historic postwar court designed to reveal the facts of a conflict that defined the nation for generations, morphing into the longest-running war in the Americas.
Thousands have testified. Wide-ranging investigations are underway. The first indictments were issued in January — and the first pleas are expected in April. Perpetrators will be punished, with those who admit responsibility receiving lesser, ‘restorative’ sentences, like house arrest or remaining free while doing hard physical labor. Those who refuse to do so will face trial, and the possibility of decades in prison.
The goal of the court, which began its work in 2018, is to give the country a common narrative about the conflict, one that will allow Colombians to move forward, together. The success of the court, called the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, could help change the trajectory of a nation that has been at war for much of its history, with one conflict rolling almost immediately into the next.
Its failure could mean the repetition of that cycle.” Read more at New York Times
“David Mintz, Whose Tofutti Made Bean Curd Cool, Dies at 89
He set out to create an ice cream substitute for people who keep kosher. He created a phenomenon, also loved by vegans, diabetics and people with milk allergies.” Read more at New York Times
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