Democrats Plot to Keep Senate In Session Over $2,000 Payments

Bernie Sanders is leading a strategy that would force the Senate to stay in Washington through New Year’s Day to try to force the vote.

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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), with the backing of the Senate Democratic caucus, is prepared to make life miserable for Senate Republicans if they do not put a clean vote on the floor to increase one-time emergency payments to most Americans approved in the recent COVID relief package from $600 to $2,000.

Sanders has the procedural means at his disposal to keep the Senate in session all the way to New Year’s Day, inconveniencing Senators of both parties, particularly the incumbent Republicans from Georgia, who are in their final full week of campaigning for runoff elections on January 5. In order to get through the week without a clean vote on the $2,000 payments, Senate Majority Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will have to object numerous times to Sanders’ pleas to bring up the bill.

The $2,000 payment bill passed the House on Monday under the name the CASH Act. Forty-four Republicans joined all but two Democrats in the bipartisan vote. President Trump repeatedly called for the increase to $2,000 while delaying his signature on the COVID relief package, which he finally signed on Sunday night.

The Senate was already scheduled to be in session Tuesday, to begin to advance an override of Trump’s veto of the defense authorization bill, which the House overrode on Monday as well. Sanders has made it clear to his colleagues that he will object to every motion made on the floor until the CASH Act gets a Senate vote.

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The Senate operates on the principle of unanimous consent. It’s not impossible to get things done if one Senator objects, but it’s quite a bit slower. The majority needs to hold votes and waste time to muscle past an objecting Senator. For this reason, Sanders can prevent quick passage of the defense bill override, the only thing McConnell really wants to accomplish in the last week of the Senate session.

This ramps up pressure on McConnell to just hold a vote on the $2,000 checks. Senators don’t want to be stuck in Washington on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day if they can prevent it.

While the situation largely depends on what course of action McConnell decides to take on Tuesday, the scenario, explained by Senate aides, goes something like this:

The Senate comes into session on Tuesday at noon. McConnell is expected to ask for unanimous consent for a vote on the defense bill veto override for Wednesday. Sanders will object to that unanimous consent, unless a vote is scheduled for the $2,000 check bill directly afterward. If McConnell objects to that, there’s a standstill.

McConnell has options to eventually get to the defense bill vote. He can move to end debate, known as a cloture vote, and push past Sanders’ objection. However, he cannot do that on Tuesday, because he won’t have enough Senators in the building to win a floor vote.

No floor votes were scheduled for Tuesday because Rand Paul already signaled that he would hold up the defense bill override by a day. Senators were already informed that no votes would be scheduled, and they have not been in Washington since they passed the COVID relief bill last Monday. With Senators scattered out across the country, McConnell will not have a quorum to hold votes tomorrow.

This means that, as long as Sanders objects, McConnell cannot begin the process of holding votes on the defense bill until Wednesday. There has to be an intervening day between that and the final vote, making Thursday—New Year’s Eve—the intervening day, and Friday—New Year’s Day—the day of the final vote to override the veto.

Throughout this time, Democrats can seek to bring up the CASH Act for a vote, and McConnell will have to object each time. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has already announced that he would move to call up the CASH Act on Tuesday.

“Every Senate Democrat is for this much-needed increase in emergency financial relief, which can be approved tomorrow if no Republican blocks it,” Schumer said in a statement. “There is no good reason for Senate Republicans to stand in the way.”

Looming over this is the Senate runoff elections in Georgia, where Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock have made the $2,000 checks the primary closing argument of their campaigns. Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) had to personally call Trump on Christmas to beg him to sign the COVID relief package, which Trump threatened to reject because the $600 direct payments were “ridiculously low.” Perdue was running ads about the package before Trump blasted it.

Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) said last week she would “consider” voting for $2,000 checks, while Perdue hasn’t given an explicit answer. If McConnell continually rejects a vote on the payments all week, it only bolsters the Democratic argument that Republicans alone are denying the public needed relief. A new Data for Progress poll shows that $2,000 checks have the support of 78 percent of the public, with robust majorities from every subgroup, including Republicans. Perdue and Loeffler would have to explain to voters why Senators are stuck in Washington over New Year’s holding this up.

Of course, McConnell could decide to just allow a floor vote. Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have expressed some support for the payments, and it could get the 60 votes it would likely need to pass. McConnell could also set up a “side by side” vote, where the payments are paired with some Republican agenda item: cuts to unemployment benefits, or McConnell’s long-sought corporate liability shield, or maybe changes to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which Trump has also demanded. Sanders would also object to that, asking for a clean vote.

While Sanders does not have the power to get a bill with $2,000 payments to Trump’s desk on his own, he does have the power to play total hardball and inconvenience as many Senators as possible. And Democrats are ready to back him up on this one. There is no daylight between Sanders’ strategy and Schumer’s, from everything I’m seeing. Democrats have latched onto a populist issue they believe will play well in the Georgia elections, and they are taking it as far as it can go.

McConnell, meanwhile, has the ability to either allow or disallow a vote, with his Senate majority potentially hanging in the balance. We should know what McConnell’s going to do when he makes remarks on the Senate floor, Tuesday at noon ET.

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