House Democrats are poised on Wednesday to approve the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package and hand President Biden his first major legislative accomplishment 50 days into his term.
The package’s approval has not been absent of controversy or Democratic infighting.
Progressives were frustrated with changes made by Senate centrists to scale back stimulus checks and weekly supplemental unemployment insurance payments, and they are still stung by the fact that the final package does not include a $15 federal minimum wage.
Biden himself had to intervene a week ago as the Senate held the longest vote in its history and Democratic senators scurried behind the scenes to negotiate a deal on the unemployment language.
But progressives in the House are nevertheless now rallying behind the package as the best option with narrow majorities in both chambers.
Two Democrats voted against the measure the first time it moved through the House, but Democratic leaders on Tuesday said they expect that number to be cut in half Wednesday.
That’s partly because the $15 minimum wage hike is no longer in the bill. Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.), one of the two centrists who voted against the initial House version, plans to vote for the bill on the floor Wednesday.
Polls show the legislation is popular, and Democrats and the White House hope it will give them a political boost as vaccines are distributed and the nation continues to open up this spring and summer from the pandemic.
The House vote takes place a year after businesses and schools began closing across the nation because of the pandemic, though the spring-like weather at the Capitol on Wednesday matched growing optimism about both the COVID-19 fight and the economy’s trajectory.
Not a single Republican in the House or Senate is expected to approve the measure, and Democrats hope that opposition will come back to bite the GOP.
“All of it an opportunity for us to grow the economy by investing in the people for the people,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said of the bill. “And I might say for our Republican colleagues who — they say no to the vote and they show up at the ribbon cuttings or the presentations.”
The bill’s popularity — particularly the largest-yet stimulus checks of up to $1,400 — hasn’t deterred Republicans from deriding it as overly expensive and partisan.
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/542417-biden-on-precipice-of-first-big-win