As Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment trial unfolded last week, a variety of Republicans complained that the proceedings were unimportant. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), for example, called the trial “stupid,” adding that policymakers “should be focused” instead on vaccine distribution and economic relief.
The Republican National Committee added soon after, “Every day Democrats spend on their post-presidency impeachment is another day Americans go without the help they need.”
The irony of such rhetoric was that Republicans had this largely backwards, as Democrats managed to walk and chew gum at the same time. As the Washington Post reported this morning, the “American Rescue Plan” continued to inch forward, despite last week’s proceedings.
Despite divisions within the House Democratic caucus, Democrats have largely unified behind the legislation. Nine House committees passed their individual portions of the bill last week, fighting back GOP attempts to alter it with dozens of amendments targeting everything from abortion to the minimum wage to the Keystone XL pipeline. Democrats defeated all the GOP amendments save for one, a relatively minor measure in the Agriculture Committee aimed at compensating farmers impacted by derecho storms last year.
By most accounts, a floor vote in the House is expected next week. Though Democratic margins in the chamber are narrow, it’s generally expected to pass.
It would then go to the Democratic-led Senate, where the party’s margin is even smaller, and where more conservative Democratic members have already voiced opposition to major elements of President Joe Biden’s proposed relief package, including a provision to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.
The odds of the Senate approving a bill are pretty good, but the odds of the Senate approving the House’s bill, without significant changes, are low. This is relevant, of course, because officials will quickly start running out of calendar: enhanced unemployment benefits are set to expire in mid-March, and the White House is determined to sign this legislation into law ahead of that deadline. As for Republicans, it’s striking that a $1.9 trillion relief package is taking shape, and while there’s no reason to expect broad bipartisan support for the bill, the GOP opposition hasn’t taken shape in earnest. In fact, at this point, there doesn’t appear to be any coordinated pushback against the Democratic effort at all. Complicating matters for Republicans, House GOP leaders now expect at least some — not many, but some — of their own members to end up supporting the Democratic relief package, which would certainly get the attention of centrist Democratic senators, and give the bill a bipartisan boost with the public. Watch this space.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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