Prospects for larger direct payments to Americans from Washington dimmed further on Wednesday, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he will not allow a stand-alone vote on the proposal passed by the House on Monday.
“The Senate is not going to split apart the three issues that President Trump has linked together just because Democrats are afraid to address them,” McConnell said after the Senate began its session, referring to Trump’s support for changing legal protections for internet companies and investigating what Trump has claimed without any evidence are instances of election fraud.
McConnell added that the House bill passed Monday, which would boost the check amounts to $2,000 from the $600 included in the $900 billion coronavirus aid package signed by Trump on Sunday, “has no realistic path to quickly pass the Senate.”
“It’s hardly clear that the federal government’s top priorities should be sending thousands of dollars to, for example, a childless couple making well into six figures who have been comfortably teleworking all year,” he said.
McConnell’s stance leaves the Senate on track to work New Year’s Day on an override of Trump’s veto of a separate defense policy bill, which McConnell said the Senate will finish “one way or the other.”
Lawmakers could speed up the schedule and avoid working Jan. 1 by reaching an agreement not to object to the override being brought up sooner, but that’s unlikely as Sen. Bernie Sanders, a liberal Vermont independent, and Sen. Josh Hawley, a conservative Missouri Republican, said they would not allow that unless the issue of bigger checks would also get a vote.
“I won’t consent on the NDAA and you won’t get a time agreement from me unless we get a vote on the checks in one form or another,” Hawley said Wednesday.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Senate’s Democrats, tried again Wednesday to get agreement to bring up the House bill, which would also expand eligibility for who is counted as a dependent in order to calculate the payments. McConnell again objected.
“Either the Senate takes up and passes the House bill, or struggling American families will not get $2,000 checks during the worst economic crisis in 75 years,” Schumer said.
The public jockeying for position comes as the Senate is running out of time to pass anything at all, with Jan. 3 bringing the convening of the 117th Congress. It also comes against the backdrop of the two Jan. 5 Senate runoff races in Georgia, where a Democratic sweep would hand them control of the chamber when Sen. Kamala Harris becomes vice president and the tie-breaking vote.
Trump, for his part, tweeted his continued support of the higher check amounts, a demand he did not bring up during the months of negotiations between House Democrats, Senate Republicans and the White House.
Unlike the checks issue, the veto override has broad bipartisan support. The vote to start debate on it, a procedural hurdle before potential votes on ending debate and passage, was 80 to 12. After the vote total was announced, McConnell said he would press for a vote to end debate, a motion that under Senate rules would not get a vote until Friday, absent an agreement to speed up the process. Even if that vote is successful, a final passage may not take place until Saturday.
“As I always say, you can do it the hard way or the easy way. And we frequently choose the hard way,” said Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican.
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