A bipartisan group spoke on Wednesday about election legislation as Democrats make a push to change the Senate’s rules so they can pass voting rights on their own.
Ryan Grim, Washington bureau chief for The Intercept, said Tuesday that congressional Democrats are less likely to concede ground to Republicans on COVID-19 relief funding this year when compared with the party s response to the financial crisis and Great Recession.
“I think there are two things going on here,” Grim said in a Hill.TV interview. The first, he said, is that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer
Second, he said, Schumer “also doesn’t want to have to face a primary challenge from AOC in 2022,” he said, referencing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Grim also highlighted the role Sen. Susan Collins
“It just so happens that Chuck Schumer and most of the other Democrats in the Senate and Democrats in the House were around in 2009 and 2010, and they saw Susan Collins play this precise same game back then that she played now,” he said.
The aide said Manchin would face serious political backlash if he derailed Biden’s plans to pass a major coronavirus relief package.
“It would be politically insane for Manchin to do that,” the aide said.
“He knows that with this power he has the ability to get a lot of money for his state. If he’s just the guy who votes against stuff, that goes away,” the aide said, noting Manchin could use his leverage to get one or several of his priorities added to the legislation.
If Manchin supports Democrats in moving Biden’s $1.9 trillion proposal or a similarly sized package, that will allow them to move forward with a straight party-line vote instead of needing to clear the 60-vote threshold most legislation requires.
President Biden on Sunday invited a group of Republican senators to meet with him at the White House early this week after they proposed a more targeted economic relief package, but the administration gave no indication it is ready to budge from i
We re going to bring a budget resolution to the floor next week and then it will send it over to the Senate. Then, if they change it, then we ll take it back and address it. But by the end of the week, we will be finished with the budget resolution, she said.
The reconciliation instructions included in the budget resolution will likely sign off on $1.9 trillion in spending, in line with Biden s coronavirus proposal. Congressional committees would then be tasked with drafting pieces of the aid package.
Schumer hasn t formally locked the Senate into approving a budget resolution, but has warned that the chamber could vote as soon as this week. Passing the budget resolution through the Senate this week, aides acknowledge, would be an aggressive timeline that would include a marathon session known as a vote-a-rama.