The Senate is in session on New Year’s Eve after months of stagnated negotiations have led to a series of votes on a coronavirus stimulus package.
Backed by a tweet from President Donald Trump, Democrats had hoped to push a vote on $2,000 stimulus checks but that vote was blocked by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
McConnell blasted the House-passed CASH Act that provides $2,000 checks, saying on the floor, “he Senate is not going to be bullied into rushing out more borrowed money into the hands of Democrat rich friends who don’t need the help.”
The Kentucky lawmaker said that the Senate will vote on the Trump-backed $2,000 checks but only in a package combining “three of the president’s priorities: Larger direct checks, a repeal of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, and further efforts to review the integrity of our democracy.”
JUST IN: Sen. Mitch McConnell signals Senate will not take up #CASHAct: "The Senate is not going to be bullied into rushing out more borrowed money into the hands of Democrat rich friends who don't need the help." pic.twitter.com/MIjX0mzexe
— The Hill (@thehill) December 30, 2020
During the New Year’s Eve session, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said that Democrats are willing to vote on all of the president’s priorities alongside a vote on $2,000 checks, but McConnell blocked that measure as well.
Schumer said that McConnell’s insistence that Trump’s priorities be packaged together in a vote “is intended to kill the possibility of $2,000 checks ever becoming law.”
He continued, “let me make this offer to the Republican majority: [Democrats] are willing to vote on the other issues that President Trump mentioned, all the issues the Republican leader says must be addressed, so long as we vote on them separately. That way $2,000 checks could become law and we could debate all the president’s supposed concerns.”
Later in his remarks, Schumer said, “If Leader McConnell wants a vote on these issues, we’re here for it. Just give us a vote on the House-passed bill and we can vote on whatever right-wing conspiracy theory you’d like.”
Sen. Chuck Schumer: "I hope every American who… had to choose which meal to skip on a given day — I hope they all heard the reason they will not receive $2000 checks is because Leader McConnell thinks it could wind up in the hands of 'Democrats' rich friends.'" pic.twitter.com/gS215AoREA
— The Hill (@thehill) December 31, 2020
While McConnell blocked a stand-alone vote on $2,000 checks, some of his Republican colleagues have said that the vote should go forward.
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said in a recent Fox News interview that McConnell should allow a vote on the checks once the new Congress is sworn in, saying, “I’d like a stand-alone vote in the new Congress on the $2,000 check. We have seven Republicans who’ve already said they would vote for it. We need five more. I think if we had the vote, we would get there.”
