Congress may vote on a bipartisan demand for another $1,200 payment as lawmakers try to pass another coronavirus stimulus bill as well as fund the federal government through next September.
U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said they would seek a vote in their chamber on direct payments of $1,200 for adults and $500 for children in legislation before Congress can go home for the year.
Their clout comes because they can use procedural methods to delay congressional action on both a new stimulus bill and on legislation funding the federal government through next September.
“In the midst of so much economic desperation, Congress cannot go on recess without providing this $1,200 emergency assistance to the American people in their time of need,” said Sanders, who sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020.
The timetable for passing a new spending bill was pushed back a week to Dec. 18 after President Donald Trump on Friday signed a one-week extension of the original Dec. 11 deadline.
A second round of stimulus payments had been endorsed by Trump and passed twice by House Democrats, but was never considered by Senate Republicans. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin recently proposed direct payments of $600 in lieu of additional unemployment insurance benefits.
And a bipartisan House bill, whose co-sponsors include Reps. Josh Gottheimer, D-5th Dist., and Jeff Van Drew, R-2nd Dist., provided for a second round of direct payments.
“As we continue to negotiate a COVID relief deal, it is critical that we include direct relief for the American people,” said the legislation’s chief Democratic sponsor, Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware.
Still, that legislation is different from the proposed bipartisan stimulus bill, which does not include the direct payments as it keeps the cost of the legislation to $908 billion.
“I’d be thrilled if we can get that done to help people but it’s not in our package,” Gottheimer said. “We weren’t able to build consensus on that.”
Still, the issue came up during negotiations on the bipartisan stimulus bill, U.S. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said Friday.
“There’s some discussion in the bipartisan group about getting rid of state and local and then putting stimulus checks in in lieu of that,” he told reporters at the Capitol, according to pool reports.
Hawley said it was “good progress” that the bipartisan group was considering adding stimulus payments to their package.
“This ought not to be difficult,” he said. “So I’m hopeful we can get it done but we’ll see. Stay tuned.”
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Lawmakers planned to resume talks over the weekend to try to overcome the last remaining hurdle, providing some protections against lawsuits for businesses, schools and other institutions.
Limiting lawsuits against businesses has been a long-standing priority of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s largest business lobby. The chamber spent $4.4 million on the 2020 elections, almost all of it in support of congressional Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Republicans won’t support additional aid for cash-strapped state and local governments without getting lawsuit protections in exchange, Gottheimer said.
“They’re not going to do state and local unless we agree to liability reforms,” Gottheimer said. “We’re trying to find a place where both sides won’t be thrilled on the liability piece.”
But U.S. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said the issue may be too difficult to solve.
“We have an eight-month impasse around liability issues, and it’s proving to be extremely difficult to close it,” Coons told reporters at the Capitol, according to pool reports.
Of 6,634 coronavirus-related lawsuits filed to date, only 29 involve injury or death due to COVID-19, according to the law firm Hunton Andrews Kurth. Meanwhile, 1,387 of them concern insurance issues.
President-elect Joe Biden said that more state and local aid was a must.
“State and local governments need the help,” Biden said Friday in Wilmington, Delaware. “We need to protect essential personnel — like cops and firefighters — and make sure everything is in place to effectively distribute the vaccine.”
And Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York argued on the Senate floor Friday that the two issues — state and local aid and liability — shouldn’t be linked at all.
“To equate state and local aid — money for policemen and firefighters, bus drivers, sanitation workers — to complete corporate immunity is false equivalence,” Schumer said. “Corporations who want protection from a few dozen lawsuits is equivalent to millions of workers from state and local governments being laid off?”
Unlike liability limits, state and local aid has bipartisan support.
“We’re a state that is really really hurting right now,” said Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska at the Capitol, according to pool reports. “So for us, a state and local piece to help with lost revenues for our local communities is huge.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has offered to drop both the state and local aid and the liability provisions from a stimulus bill and resume the debate next year, while passing paycheck protection program loans for small businesses and extending unemployment insurance.
“If my friends actually oppose PPP funding, vaccine distribution money, or extending some expiring unemployment aid, let’s hear why,” McConnell said on the Senate floor Friday. “But if they do not oppose these things, let’s get them out the door.”
Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant.
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