Andrew Harnik/AP Photo/
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi walks from the House chamber after voting on the nearly $500 billion coronavirus relief bill, April 23, 2020.
As the economy continues to crater, Speaker Pelosi is under pressure to deliver another relief bill that could be as much as $2 trillion. This time, she has vowed to go big.
Her task is complicated by demands from various factions of a fractious House Democratic Caucus. The last two bills were pretty much written by the leadership and bargained out with Senate Leader Mitch McConnell.
This time, the rank and file demands to be heard. But which rank and file?
High on everyone’s list is money for state and local aid. At least $500 billion and as much as a trillion. This would also be hard for Trump to oppose, since Republican governors as well as Democratic ones are hurting as their own revenues collapse.
Beyond that, it’s a taffy pull. On relief for workers, Pelosi seems to be edging closer to an approach championed by Progressive Caucus Co-Chair Pramila Jayapal, in which aid would go directly to keep workers on payrolls at 100 percent of pay, rather than via the badly impaired unemployment comp system.
Jayapal’s Paycheck Guarantee Act would also solve the problem of laid-off workers losing health coverage, since they would not be laid off—as well as the concern about workers getting more money to be unemployed than to stay on the job.
This time, House Democrats could have a stronger hand against McConnell—if they play it well. Pelosi seems to have found a way for the House to go first, and thus set the agenda. There is a great deal of popular support for more relief, and not much for McConnell’s quid pro quo—a provision to hold corporations harmless against any virus-related damage litigation.
This is also a three-way negotiation, between Pelosi/Schumer, McConnell—and Trump. Given Trump’s interest in not being the president who presided over a worse collapse than the Great Depression, the Democrats may be able to triangulate Trump against McConnell. He needs these relief measures as much as anybody.
