The Covid bill was a huge test for Chuck Schumer in keeping all 50 of his members on board for an ambitious bill. He pulled it off, but not without a last-minute clash that broke a record for longest Senate vote held open.
The House will vote TUESDAY on the Senate-passed Covid relief bill, per @LeaderHoyer. If it passes (and it is expected to) then it goes to @JoeBiden for his signature and $1.9 trillion can begin to go out the door.
LATEST: Senate Democrats blazed through a series of overnight votes after resolving an internal clash over jobless benefits that threatened to derail the bill.
They voted down lots of GOP amendments with everyone aboard.
ELEVEN HOURS LATER: The Senate has yet to call the minimum wage vote as Democrats ready their new jobless benefit amendment for prime time.
The chamber is mostly empty.
And 11 hours and 50 minutes later, the Senate finishes the vote on the first amendment to the Covid relief bill.
"Voting will resume shortly," @SenSchumer says. "Now that this agreement has reached we are going to power through the rest of this process and get this bill done."
McConnell mocks Democrats for their internal divisions that forced this delay. "What this proves is there are benefits to bipartisanship," he says. As majority leader, McConnell pursued partisan votes (unsuccessfully) for ACA repeal and (successfully) on a major tax overhaul.
NOW: @BernieSanders is introducing an amendment to raise the minimum wage to $15/hour in the Covid relief bill.
It doesn't have 50 votes at this stage and it's subject to being removed under reconciliation rules. But it looks like he intends to put every senator on the record.
Bernie Sanders, making the case for a $15 minimum wage, argues that some Americans are "giving up on democracy and moving toward authoritarianism" out of desperation, because the government keeps passing economic policies that ignore their needs and makes rich people richer.
"I think the parliamentarian was dead wrong," @BernieSanders says of the minimum wage ruling, decrying the "absurd process that we allow an unelected staffer" in the Senate to decide "whether 30 million Americans get a pay raise or not."
That’s according to two sources familiar with the Senate Democrats’ new plan. It keeps the $1,400 topline number for checks, per Biden’s promise, but phases them out much faster above the $75K/$150K incomes.
This means Biden will send checks to fewer people than Trump did (but with more cash for many).
Some Democrats had argued against this, warning it'd lead to some seriously angry people who got money before and didn't expect to be excluded this round.
Warren on the filibuster: “The piece in front of us right now is the minimum wage. The piece that's coming up is the Voting Rights Act. And the piece after that is immigration reform. And another piece is universal child care. The infrastructure package.” nbcnews.com/politics/congr…
Biden’s filibuster position hasn’t changed, per White House official who points me to broad support for his nominations as sign of cooperation.
Some Dems say his overtures will only waste time as Rs run Obama-era playbook of unifying to weaken the prez. nbcnews.com/politics/congr…
.@RoKhanna + 22 House Dems call on White House to ignore the parliamentarian and allow a $15 wage in the Covid bill.
A Senate expert tells me @VP has the power do this—and it'd take 60 votes to overrule her—but that it's never been done on Byrd rule.
WH has rejected this call.
What @RoKhanna et al. are calling for is @VP to *ignore* the parliamentarian by issuing a ruling that the $15 wage complies. The parl. is an adviser and has no power to rule; the presiding officer rules and VP can preside. Hence this scenario doesn’t require a vote to *overrule.*
In any event, the other problem for Democrats pushing a $15 wage end-run around the parliamentarian is that even if they clear the rules hurdle, they lack 50 Senate votes for the policy.