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GOP Blocks Senate COVID Bill, Demands Votes on Immigration

Republicans blocked a Democratic attempt Tuesday to begin Senate debate on a $10 billion COVID-19 compromise, pressing to entangle the bipartisan package with an election-year showdown over immigration restrictions that poses a politically uncomfortable fight for Democrats. 

A day after Democratic and GOP bargainers reached agreement on providing the money for treatments, vaccines and testing, a Democratic move to push the measure past a procedural hurdle failed 52-47. All 50 Republicans opposed the move, leaving Democrats 13 votes short of the 60 they needed to prevail. 

Hours earlier, Republicans said they’d withhold crucial support for the measure unless Democrats agreed to votes on an amendment preventing President Joe Biden from lifting Trump-era curbs on migrants entering the U.S. With Biden polling poorly on his handling of immigration and Democrats divided on the issue, Republicans see a focus on migrants as a fertile line of attack. 

“I think there will have to be” an amendment preserving the immigration restrictions “in order to move the bill” bolstering federal pandemic efforts, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, told reporters. 

At least 10 GOP votes will be needed in the 50-50 Senate for the measure to reach the 60 votes it must have for approval. Republicans could withhold that support until Democrats permit a vote on an immigration amendment. 

Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, want Congress to approve the pandemic bill before lawmakers leave in days for a two-week recess. Tuesday’s vote suggested that could be hard. 

“This is a potentially devastating vote for every single American who was worried about the possibility of a new variant rearing its nasty head within a few months,” Schumer said after the vote. 

The new omicron variant, BA.2, is expected to spark a fresh increase in U.S. COVID-19 cases. Around 980,000 Americans and more than 6 million people worldwide have died from the disease. 

The $10 billion pandemic package is far less than the $22.5 billion Biden initially sought. It also lacks $5 billion Biden wanted to battle the pandemic overseas after the two sides couldn’t agree on budget savings to pay for it, as Republicans demanded. 

At least half the bill would finance research and production of therapeutics to treat COVID-19. Money would also be used to buy vaccines and tests and to research new variants. 

The measure is paid for by pulling back unspent pandemic funds provided earlier for protecting aviation manufacturing jobs, closed entertainment venues and other programs. 

Administration officials have said the government has run out of money to finance COVID-19 testing and treatments for people without insurance, and is running low on money for boosters, free monoclonal antibody treatments and care for people with immune system weaknesses. 

At the 2020 height of the pandemic, President Donald Trump imposed immigration curbs letting authorities immediately expel asylum-seekers and migrants for public health reasons. The ban is set to expire May 23, triggering what by all accounts will be a massive increase in people trying to cross the Mexican border into the U.S. 

That confronts Democrats with messy choices ahead of fall elections when they’re expected to struggle to retain their slim House and Senate majorities. 

Many of the party’s lawmakers and their liberal supporters want the U.S. to open its doors to more immigrants. But moderates and some Democrats confronting tight November reelections worry about lifting the restrictions and alienating centrist voters. 

Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat from Nevada, who faces a competitive reelection this fall, declined to say whether she would support retaining the Trump-era ban but said more needs to be done. 

“I need a plan, we need a plan,” she said in a brief interview. “There’s going to be a surge at the border. There should be a plan and I’ve been calling for it all along.” 

Shortly before Tuesday’s vote, Schumer showed no taste for exposing his party to a divisive immigration vote. 

“This is a bipartisan agreement that does a whole lot of important good for the American people. Vaccines, testing, therapeutics,” he said. “It should not be held hostage for an extraneous issue.” 

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which initiated the move two years ago, said earlier this month that it would lift the ban next month. The restrictions, known as Title 42, have been harder to justify as pandemic restrictions have eased. 

Trump administration officials cast the curb as a way to keep COVID-19 from spreading further in the U.S. Democrats considered that an excuse for Trump, whose anti-immigrant rhetoric was a hallmark of his presidency, to keep migrants from entering the country. 

Representative Judy Chu, a California Democrat, said she supported terminating Trump’s curb and questioned GOP motives for seeking to reinstate it. 

“I find it very ironic for those who haven’t wanted to have a vaccination mandate, for those who did not want to have masks in the classroom, for them to suddenly be very interested in protecting the public,” she said. 

 
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Biden Proposal Would Expand Health Care Access

U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced plans to expand access to health care by proposing changes to the Affordable Care Act to allow millions of additional families to purchase health insurance and obtain tax credits to offset the cost. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara reports.
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US Senate Bargainers Reach Agreement on $10 Billion COVID Package

Senate bargainers have reached agreement on a slimmed-down $10 billion package for countering COVID-19, the top Democratic and Republican negotiators said Monday, but the measure dropped all funding to help nations abroad combat the pandemic. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, said the deal would give the government “the tools we need” to continue battling the disease. Senator Mitt Romney, a Republican from Utah, trumpeted budget savings in the measure that he said meant it “will not cost the American people a single additional dollar.” 

At least half the measure would have to be used to research and produce therapeutics to treat the disease, according to fact sheets distributed by Schumer and Romney, the two top bargainers. 

The money would also be used to buy vaccines and tests. At least $750 million would be used to research new COVID-19 variants and to expand vaccine production, the descriptions said. 

The agreement comes with party leaders hoping to move the legislation through Congress this week, before lawmakers leave for a two-week spring recess. It also comes with BA.2, the new omicron variant, expected to spark a fresh increase in U.S. cases. Around 980,000 Americans and over 6 million people worldwide have died from COVID-19. 

Schumer blamed the GOP for the lack of global assistance, saying he is “disappointed that our Republican colleagues could not agree to include the $5 billion” from an earlier version of the measure. He said members of both parties want to craft a second spending measure this spring that could include funds to battle COVID-19 and hunger overseas and more assistance for Ukraine as it continues battling the Russian invasion. 

Romney suggested an openness to considering future COVID-19 money. “While this agreement does not include funding for the U.S. global vaccination program, I am willing to explore a fiscally responsible solution to support global efforts in the weeks ahead,” he said. 

The accord represents a deep cut from the $22.5 billion President Joe Biden initially requested, and from a $15 billion version that both parties’ leaders had negotiated last month. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, abandoned that plan after Democratic lawmakers rejected proposed cuts in state pandemic aid to help pay for the package. 

The $15 billion plan had included about $5 billion for the global effort to fight COVID-19, which has run rampant in many countries, especially poorer ones. The overall price tag has shrunk, and the global money has fallen off, as the two parties have been unable to agree on more than $10 billion in budget savings to pay for it. 

 
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Biden Supreme Court Nominee Advances to Full Senate Vote Later This Week

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson advanced one step closer to serving on the U.S. Supreme Court with a key U.S. Senate committee Monday advancing her nomination for a full floor vote later this week.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s nominee to serve on the highest court in the country also won the support of two more Republicans Monday, as Senators Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney announced they plan to vote to confirm Jackson. Republican Senator Susan Collins said last week she would support Jackson.  

Their votes, along with those of the 48 Democrats and two independents in the Senate, would be more than enough to confirm Jackson and make her the first African American female Supreme Court justice in U.S. history. 

Senate Democrats praised Jackson’s breadth of experience ahead of the vote on her nomination, calling her one of the most qualified nominees in the history of the Supreme Court.

“Justice Jackson will bring to the Supreme Court, the highest level of skill, integrity, civility and grace,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin said Monday. “She has impeccable qualifications. We don’t agree on much in the Senate but not one senator on this committee has questioned that she is well qualified.”

The 51-year-old Jackson served as a judge for almost a decade and has experience clerking at every level of the federal system, including in the U.S. Supreme Court for Justice Stephen Breyer, whom she is nominated to replace. Jackson would be the first justice to have experience as a federal public defender.

“These critical experiences bring a missing perspective to the court,” Durbin noted. “It is truly unfortunate that some are trying to use them as reasons to vote against her. These baseless attacks are belied by the broad support for Judge Jackson’s nomination from across the political spectrum. Law enforcement, former federal prosecutors, Republican-appointed judges, and even more have vouched for her intellect, her intelligence, her ability to build consensus and her evenhandedness.”

Jackson garnered no Republican votes in an 11-11 vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee. But Democrats were still able to advance her vote to the floor using Senate procedures.

There was widespread Republican criticism of Jackson for her past sentencing of child pornographers. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who has previously voted for Biden judicial nominees, said Monday, “I’m inclined to vote for judges of the other side, but this choice of Judge Jackson was really embraced by the most radical people in the Democratic movement to the exclusion of everybody else.”

Other Senate Republicans have argued Jackson did not adequately define her judicial philosophy.

Senator Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the committee, said Monday, “She and I have fundamental, different views on the role of judges and the role that they should play in our system of government. Because of those disagreements, I can’t support her nomination.”

The Senate is expected to begin debate and to hold a final vote on her nomination before leaving for the Easter holiday recess later this week.
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