The war in Ukraine has provided a kick in the pants to congressional negotiators putting together the omnibus spending bill that has to pass before March 11, the deadline imposed by the current continuing resolution that’s funding government operations. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told Democrats on a caucus call that they will vote on the bill on March 8, a week from today, and with plenty of time for the Senate to follow.
The administration’s $6.4 billion request for Ukrainian assistance, which could very well increase in the coming week, will likely be tacked on to that omnibus bill. The inclusion of that aid should help grease the skids to finally get this spending bill—for fiscal year 2022, which will be nearly half over by the time it passes—past Republican obstruction. Expect more news on the administration’s request for Ukraine aid in President Joe Biden’s State of the Union (SOTU) address Tuesday night.
Any member intending to attend the SOTU is required to have a COVID test, which is resulting in some positives and potential headaches on the Senate side of things, where there are already Democrats out for illness and family reasons. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) lost her husband to cancer on Sunday and is out, and Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) is recovering from a stroke he suffered several weeks ago. Now Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) has a positive COVID test and will thus be isolating for the week.
That might not complicate things too badly for Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. The bulk of the week on the Senate floor will be taken up considering HR 3076, the Postal Service Reform Act. It’s a good bill, and it has already passed in the House. It finally does away with the requirement (cooked up in 2006 by Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins and passed in a delirious fit by a Congress trying to leave for the Christmas holidays) that the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) pre-fund retiree health benefits for something like 75 years into the future. This policy has bankrupted the agency. The bill forgives something like $50 billion of the USPS’ $63 billion in debt, and requires that all future Postal Service retirees enroll in Medicare.
That bill passed the cloture hurdle Monday night, 74-20. With that kind of bipartisan support, you’d think the Senate could just move right to the motion to proceed and then to the final vote to pass the bill, but this is the Senate and one Republican can force the body to use up all the possible hours of “debate” time. In this case, the one Republican who would deny unanimous consent to move right to the bill is Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who has already delayed the bill. The final vote on it could be pushed to next week.
That cloture vote followed the filibuster of the Women’s Health Protection Act, which failed 46-48. This bill would codify Roe v. Wade, establishing federal protections to “protect a person’s ability to determine whether to continue or end a pregnancy, and to protect a health care provider’s ability to provide abortion services,” safeguarding the right from the radical Supreme Court. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) helped Republicans with that filibuster, which also included supposedly pro-choice Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski (AK) and Collins.
The House voted Monday night to finally make lynching a federal hate crime. The bill, named for Emmett Till, was approved 422 to 3, with Republicans Reps. Chip Roy of Texas, Andrew Clyde of Georgia and Thomas Massie of Kentucky voting against it. Because they are monsters. This is something like the 200th time Congress has tried to pass the measure. That includes an attempt in 2020, blocked by two Republicans in the Senate: Kentucky’s Rand Paul, with an assist from his leader, Mitch McConnell.
With the majority now in Democratic hands, Paul might not be able to repeat that obstruction, because while his colleagues are really happy to use all the racist dog whistles they can blow against Biden’s nominees and racially inclusive policy efforts, more than 10 of them are not going to line up to be put-on record as pro-lynching.
And finally, President Biden made his nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court official, with notice to the Senate Judiciary committee. Her meetings with Senate leadership start Wednesday.
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