US House passes January 6 commission bill with minimal Republican support
More than four and a half months after a mob of Trump supporters, fascistic militia members and neo-Nazis stormed the US Capitol in an attempt to block certification of the election of President Joe Biden and install Donald Trump as de facto dictator, the House of Representatives on Wednesday passed HR 3233 to establish an “independent bipartisan” commission to investigate the January 6 coup attempt.
The legislation passed by a vote of 252 to 175, with only 35 Republicans, drawn primarily from the Problem Solvers Caucus, voting in favor. The bill has little chance of passage in the evenly divided Senate, under conditions where the entire Republican congressional leadership has come out against it and the party as a whole continues to back Trump and promote his lying narrative of a “stolen election.”
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi leads the vote to approve a landmark $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill, at the Capitol in Washington, March 10, 2021. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
WASHINGTON (AP) A US Congress riven along party lines approved a landmark $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill Wednesday, as President Joe Biden and Democrats claimed a triumph on a bill that marshals the government’s spending might against twin pandemic and economic crises that have upended a nation.
The House gave final congressional approval to the sweeping package by a near party line 220-211 vote precisely seven weeks after Biden entered the White House and four days after the Senate passed the bill. Republicans in both chambers opposed the bill unanimously, characterizing it as bloated, crammed with liberal policies and heedless of signs the crises are easing.
House members push for answers in wake of security breaches at Capitol
By Jazmine Ulloa and Jess Bidgood Globe Staff,Updated January 14, 2021, 7:10 p.m.
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National Guard troops at the Capitol in Washington on Thursday.Jason Andrew/NYT
WASHINGTON â The removal of panic buttons from Representative Ayanna Pressleyâs Capitol Hill office before an armed insurrection overran the complex is under review by the House Administration Committee, as Congressional Democrats push to determine whether the mob had inside help.
âThe American people do deserve to know if these assailants were at all enabled by the very people who are responsible for stopping them and how we can ensure that attacks like this will never happen again,â Pressley said in an interview.