The U.S. Senate tried to invoke cloture on a coronavirus bill on Sunday evening. They needed 60 votes, but Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) only received forty-seven. Technically, he had 48 votes, but for procedural reasons involving his ability to call the bill up again McConnell switched his ‘aye’ vote to ‘nay.’ It didn’t really matter to the outcome, but one reason that the count was so low is that several Republicans are self-quarantining and cannot vote. Chief among them is the other Kentucky senator, Rand Paul, who has tested positive for COVID-19 and has possibly exposed some of his colleagues.
All told, there appears to be four senators who are in quarantine at the moment in addition to Paul: Rick Scott of Florida, Mitt Romney and Mike Lee of Utah, and Cory Gardner of Colorado. If you’re wondering why Bernie Sanders didn’t vote, it’s because he didn’t even show up:
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., missed a crucial Senate vote Sunday to hold a livestream from his home in Burlington with “Squad” members Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.
It’s hard to see what the point of that decision was, but at least it didn’t wind up making any difference. It might become important on Monday if Sanders isn’t present. McConnell’s 53-47 majority is down to 48-47 with the absence of five of his members. We’re on the verge of seeing a functional Democratic majority in the Senate.
The Wall Street futures market reacted negatively to the combination of another dreadful White House coronavirus press conference and the apparent stalemate over a bill in Congress, and the expectation is that the stock market will take another massive nosedive when it opens at 9am on Monday. For this reason, McConnell initially planned to time his second stab at winning a procedural vote to a period of outright panic.
McConnell tried initially to set another procedural vote, after Sunday’s party-line rejection of cloture on the motion to proceed to the underlying legislative vehicle (HR 748), for 9:45 a.m. That was intended for maximum shock value, particularly if the stock market trips its automatic “circuit breaker,” halting trades for 15 minutes, after the 9:30 a.m. open if the S&P 500 drops 7 percent from its previous close.
But Schumer, who had just been meeting with [Treasury Secretary Steve] Mnuchin and [White House legislative affairs director Eric] Ueland, went to the floor and objected. “We are making progress. I think there’s a good chance we’ll have an agreement. But we don’t need artificial deadlines,” Schumer said.
McConnell agreed to move the vote back to noon. “Maybe there will be some miraculous coming together tonight. I hope so. If not, we will now be voting at noon rather than 9:45,” he said off the Senate floor.
Meanwhile, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said before the Senate vote failed that the Democrats and Republicans are so far apart that she’s going to have the Democratically-controlled House mark up their own bill rather than continue to negotiate with McConnell. It’s unclear if she intends to keep that promise.
On Twitter, Paul Krugman argued persuasively that the Republican bill addresses a less urgent problem than what the Democrats want to focus on. The economy does need a jolt, but it can’t be helped while everyone is in lockdown. The more immediate problem is the health crisis and people who aren’t getting paychecks because they’ve lost their hours or job. So, regardless of what kind of selling frenzy greets Congress on Monday morning, the Republican bill can wait.
Pelosi seems to be in total control of the situation, but she has problems of her own. As early as a week ago, the House was talking about extending their recess because lawmakers aren’t eager to expose themselves to the coronavirus. With several senators now in quarantine, returning to Washington, DC is even less attractive. Ideally, they’d show up just to have a quick vote authorizing an economic rescue bill and leave again, but Pelosi’s plan would require long legislative hours and many votes.
Meanwhile, President Trump was his usual assholish self:
President Trump, at a White House news briefing Sunday evening, took an unusually conciliatory tack, declining to criticize Senate Democrats for holding out.
“We all want to get to the same place,” he said.
“We’re very close,” Trump said. “The Democrats want to get there,” and so do Republicans, he said. “I don’t think anybody has a choice.”
Asked if he would swear off receiving assistance for his own businesses, Trump demurred, saying that “it cost me billions and billions of dollars to be president” and that he had gotten no credit for declining his annual salary.
It should be an interesting morning, and an interesting week.
Seeing this play out a day later, yep, the Republicans talked themselves into a corner. Add in all the off color comments about people dying to “reopen the economy “. Grandma-killers can sit down and wait until Nancy Smash and her pal Mr. Schumer have a serious adult conversation about helping people.