Impeachment and COVID Relief
On Impeachment: I remember once I was giving a presentation on a major change in policy at the bank I was working for, as I was talking the CEO passed me a note: “your winning shut up.” I suspect that was the content of the message pro-Trump Senators gave to the former President’s legal team as they prepare their arguments.
While the headlines were all about impeachment this week, while the trial was going on the House committees were meeting on the COVID-19 relief package.
Last week the Senate voted 56 to 44 to proceed with the impeachment trial over Republican objections that it was unconstitutional to impeach a former official. While Democrats carried the day on the motion to proceed, and got six Republican Senators to join them, it will take 67 Senators to convict the President on the House impeachment charges. With 44 Republican Senators on record as believing it is not constitutional to convict a former official there seems little chance that the Senate will convict. With this solid base of support the expectation is that the President’s defense is a formality and that a majority of the 50 Republican Senators will vote to acquit former President Trump and fallback on the position that the trial is unconstitutional and not be concerned with the merits.
Most observers believe that the House impeachment managers presented a strong case, and the hope of most Democrats is that the trial has weakened the ability of President Trump to play an active role in American politics – time will tell.
Covid Relief: On the policy front while the Senate was holding the trial, various House Committees were busy preparing the actual legislative language for the massive $1.9T Covid Relief Bill. Under the terms of the reconciliation process the various committees with jurisdiction write their language and then next week the House Budget Committee will take all the parts and create the actual bill.
As the House writes the bill it must coordinate with the White House and most importantly the Senate Democratic leadership. As with all legislation, for a bill to be sent to the President it must pass in the exact same form in both the House and the Senate. Often with big bills like Reconciliation the two chambers will pass different versions and then meet in a joint House/Senate Conference Committee to work out the differences. However, with this Covid Relief Bill there is an urgency to pass it by March 14, so both chambers and the White House will have to strive to find common ground in the coming weeks.
The House plans to pass its version of the bill the week of February 22 and give the Senate a week to work on the legislation. The House and Senate will then have a week to work out any differences in order to meet the March 14 deadline. At this point the biggest issue of disagreement is likely to be an increase in the minimum wage. Speaker Pelosi has said it will be in the House version of the bill; but it appears unlikely that the Senate will approve the increase to $15.00 an hour. There are at least two Democratic Senators who have publicly opposed the idea; and as President Biden has conceded a minimum wage increase is unlikely to meet the procedural rules that are required of Budget Reconciliation.
Bottom line is that Democrats appear poised to pass a large Covid Bill without putting together a bipartisan package; and get the bill to the President’s desk by March 14 when the current federal unemployment benefits run out.
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