On the advice of the House physician, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer announced this morning, the House will not return next Monday as planned. "We made a judgment that we will not come back next week but that we hope to come back very soon," he said. "The House doctor, when I talked to him yesterday, was concerned because the numbers in the District of Columbia are going up," Hoyer continued. "The House physician's view was that there was a risk to members that was one he would not recommend taking."
That's following a minor revolt by members last week when Speaker of the House Pelosi and Hoyer announced their May 4 return. It's not only the members who are endangering themselves, it's all the staff—the congressional aides, the Capitol Hill police, the floor staff, the janitorial and cafeteria staff—that make up the miniature city that is the Capitol is when Congress is in session. Not to mention all the airport and airline staff on the trips back and forth to D.C. Not to mention that many members have young families and don't have child care options during quarantine. This is why Pelosi and McConnell should have come up with plans for remote work weeks ago.
House Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern appears to agree. In an op-ed for The Washington Post, he seems pretty fed up: "Covid-19 has exposed just how unprepared Congress is to continue its business during an unforeseen crisis," he writes. "It is time for this institution to finally embrace technology so it can safely continue legislating during an unexpected emergency."
"The status quo has become unacceptable and dangerous—not just to members of Congress, but more importantly, to everyone we come in contact with," he continues. Yes, but it also means that the entire nation is held in limbo as Congress tries to figure out traveling back and forth and getting a quorum for voting and just the logistics of them doing their damn job. Enough of that—McGovern is absolutely right. They need a goddamned plan, one that doesn't endanger everyone because a bunch of Republicans who are trying to demonstrate their fealty to Trump, or some damn thing, refuse to wear masks and ignore the safety protocols developed by the Office of Attending Physician and the House Sergeant at Arms.
That's what happened last week when the whole House had to come back to vote on the Phase 3.5 bill that gave an infusion of cash to the small business loan program and more funding to testing and for hospitals. McGovern doesn't want to see a repeat and says it's about time that "members of Congress [who] have varying degrees of comfort with different technologies" get over it (in more polite terms). He suggests beginning with remote voting by proxy, which allows a relatively small number of lawmakers to vote on behalf of colleagues. He suggests starting with that as it will "evolve our approach to use more sophisticated options as we ease into this crisis."
"Inaction, however, is simply not an option," he concludes. "The need to adapt is urgent. Experts have made clear that even if the crush of coronavirus lessens in the immediate future, this pandemic could come back even stronger in the fall. I don't want to look back and wish we had made changes now."
Here's the other part that he doesn't talk about: The Senate is coming back because McConnell has another unqualified judge he wants to promote who's on the hearing schedule for the Judiciary Committee next week. That's a very big worry, but so is whatever McConnell can cook up to prevent the next big, very necessary coronavirus bill—the bill the House says will be a people's bailout. He's already trying to take hostages with it. The House can't let that happen. Pelosi can't let that happen.
They needed to figure out remote voting weeks ago. The fact that they didn't shouldn't keep them from fixing that now.
