House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill on Thursday. | Andrew Harnik/AP Photo
Speaker Nancy Pelosi is projecting confidence that the House will pass Democrats’ massive coronavirus relief bill Friday, even as she and her leadership team are still working to secure the votes.
Both liberals and centrists in the caucus are grumbling about the roughly $3 trillion measure. House Republicans have overwhelmingly said they oppose the bill, and some Democrats are unable to travel to the Capitol to vote amid the pandemic, leaving Pelosi and her whip operation with tight margins to clear the bill.
Still, House Democrats are expected to broadly back the package, likely approving it late Friday evening and setting up Pelosi’s opening bid in the next round of aid negotiations with Republicans.
“The House will vote on the Heroes Act tomorrow,” Pelosi said Thursday as she opened her weekly news conference, exuding the same certainty she’s expressed on private caucus calls this week despite pressure from some Democrats to delay the vote.
Speaking to her caucus on Thursday evening, Pelosi warned of the tough questions they would face back home if they voted down billions in local aid.
“If you vote against this and all this funding for your state, then you have to go home and defend it. And if you can defend that no vote, then you’re a better politician than me,” Pelosi told her members on a caucus call Thursday evening, according to multiple people on the call.
At least one moderate Democrat, Rep. Kendra Horn (D-Okla.), has said she’ll oppose the package, dismissing it as a “messaging bill” with no GOP support. More than a half-dozen others have said they are leaning against the bill, citing the overall cost of the bill as well as provisions to provide undocumented immigrants with some aid or to repeal the cap on state and local tax deductions.
Other Democrats are raising alarm bells over a pension provision that is detested by some key labor groups. The package includes an existing bill that some labor advocates complain would weaken the multi-employer pension system.
Key liberal Democrats are also withholding support for now and are even mulling a floor strategy to block consideration of the package by opposing an initial procedural vote.
Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), the chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, had unsuccessfully lobbied Pelosi to delay consideration of the bill until next week. They spent much of Thursday surveying their roughly 100 members about how to proceed, though people familiar with the discussions say it’s unlikely the caucus would seek to upend the legislation completely.
Rep. Ro Khanna, a member of CPC leadership, said Thursday the group has not yet settled on a plan. Asked whether progressives would be willing to vote against the bill or the rule to govern debate, Khanna said: “I’m hoping it won’t come to that.”
The California Democrat said he’s still reviewing Pelosi’s coronavirus package, but acknowledged it would be difficult to vote against nearly $1 trillion in cash for state and local governments that could otherwise be forced to cut public services.
“These things have all been difficult choices, because our states and counties so desperately need the trillion dollars, but there are parts of it that are problematic,” Khanna told reporters.
Progressives are demanding more money for safety net programs, including Jayapal’s signature proposal to stave off unemployment by letting the federal government cover payroll for struggling companies for at least three months. Others wanted Democrats to expand health benefits under Medicare and the Affordable Care Act, rather than shore up the costly and unpopular temporary workplace insurance program, COBRA.
Still, most House Democrats have touted Pelosi’s vast proposal to deliver $3 trillion to governments, businesses and individuals facing financial hardships because of the coronavirus pandemic. Besides the money for state and local governments, it would deliver another round of cash payments to millions of Americans, offer rent and mortgage relief and extend the duration of unemployment benefits.
The Democratic bill would also relieve some student debt, though lawmakers significantly scaled back the provision on Thursday. A new version of the bill would forgive debt only for borrowers who were “economically distressed” at the onset of the pandemic; the initial version would have applied to all of the nation’s more than 45 million student loan borrowers, regardless of financial circumstances.
Democrats also added language to prevent registered lobbyists from accessing small business loans during the pandemic — a loophole that drew complaints from moderates who feared it would be turned into a GOP attack ad.
The relief bill won’t be entirely without Republican support. Moderate GOP Rep. Peter King of New York, who is retiring after this year, has said he will back the legislation and wouldn’t be surprised if a handful of other Republicans did as well.
But the Trump administration opposes Pelosi’s proposal and most Republicans have panned it, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) describing it Thursday as a “totally unserious effort.” Republicans by and large have hit the pause button on pushing for additional aid, saying they would like to study how the nearly $3 trillion allocated so far is working before doling out more federal funds.
In addition, they say if Pelosi were serious about passing another bill, she would’ve negotiated with Republicans and the White House at the outset, not offering to do so after the fact. Pelosi on Thursday dismissed that criticism, arguing Republicans had done the same in earlier rounds of talks.
“We’re putting our offer on the table, we’re open to negotiation,” Pelosi told reporters. “When people say [it’s] partisan, it’s like wait a minute, it wasn’t partisan when they did it. … We’re saying ‘OK here’s our offer, let’s see where you are.’”
The House will also vote Friday on a historic change to the chamber’s rules that would allow members to partake in floor votes remotely by designating a proxy to vote on their behalf. It would also allow House committees to hold hearings, mark-ups and depositions remotely.
Republicans spent much of Thursday denouncing the change during a House Rules Committee hearing on the proposal. GOP lawmakers have refused to support the rules change, saying Democrats are rushing to upend 200 years of congressional norms without fully thinking through the consequences.
Democratic leaders have dismissed those charges, noting they worked for weeks to negotiate a bipartisan proposal with Republicans to no avail. Despite their failure to reach an agreement, Democrats did incorporate some Republican ideas into the final proposal, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said.
“This is not about getting advantage. This is about getting the people’s House and the people’s representatives in committee to work and work productively,” Hoyer said as he testified before the Rules panel Thursday. “This may be a once-a-century experience in our country.”
Pelosi also brushed off the Republican criticisms, noting the proxy voting change is temporary, lasting for only 45 days unless she chooses to renew it. The Washington, D.C., region continues to see an increase in coronavirus cases, prompting Mayor Muriel Bowser to extend the city’s stay-at-home order earlier this week until June 8.
“I would hope that it wouldn’t be any longer than that,” Pelosi said Thursday. “But we just have to judge at the time, and not when I say we, I don’t mean me. I mean the Capitol physician, the sergeant-at-arms, those who make a judgment about when we could lift such a [restriction].”
Michael Stratford contributed to this report.
