The Groundwork for the Next Coronavirus Relief Package is Being Made Without Republican Votes
Democrats have started to lay the groundwork to pass the next coronavirus relief package without Republican votes as GOP lawmakers criticize the cost of President Joe Biden’s rescue plan.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., added votes to the chamber’s schedule next week “that will give us the option of using budget reconciliation to advance a COVID-19 relief package,” he told lawmakers Tuesday night. The thorny process would allow Democrats to pass a pandemic aid bill by a simple majority vote in the Senate with no Republican support.
In a letter to Democrats later Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said committee chairs “are working on coronavirus relief legislation as a basis for reconciliation, should that step be needed.” She added that “we hope and expect” Republicans will back an aid bill, but “Democrats will not take any tools off the table.”
