The U.S. Senate overcame the traditional week-long hissy fit by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) to round out its week of work by passing the $40 billion Ukraine aid package requested by President Joe Biden. The House had its own obstructionist Republicans to overcome, but finished out the week passing legislation to deal with energy company price gouging and trying to ease the baby formula shortage.
According to MSN, Paul—in defiance of his senior senator, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell—had held up the package for a week, demanding that the bill include the appointment of an inspector general to oversee the spending. Last Thursday, Paul refused to agree to an amendment vote on his proposal, stopping the chamber from moving forward. “No matter how sympathetic the cause, my oath of office is to the national security of the United States of America,” Paul said according to MSN. “We cannot save Ukraine by dooming the U.S. economy.”
“They’re only asking for the resources they need to defend themselves against this deranged invasion,” McConnell said of the Ukrainians on the floor last week. “And they need this help right now.” Eventually Paul relented. He got no changes made to the bill the House had already overwhelmingly passed earlier this month, and the bill passed the Senate 86-11.
Ten other Republicans joined with Paul to vote against it: Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, John Boozman of Arkansas, Mike Braun of Indiana, Mike Crapo of Idaho, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Mike Lee of Utah, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Roger Marshall of Kansas, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama.
Washington state Sen. Emily Randall and RuralOrganizing.org's Matt Hildreth talk about what they're seeing and hearing while knocking on doors this week on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast
“It appears more and more MAGA Republicans are using the same soft-on-Putin playbook used by former President Trump,” Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said of those 11 according to Capitol Hill correspondent Jamie Dupree. It’s hard to argue otherwise.
None of those MAGA senators, however, were willing to stop the Senate from passing the House infant formula bill by unanimous consent, meaning no roll call vote was forced. That bill authorizes the Department of Agriculture to waive some of the restrictions in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) to ensure needy families have access to formula. It would allow WIC participants to purchase whatever brand of formula is available. Usually the vouchers provided through WIC only allow a single brand.
“The Senate has just passed legislation to help ease the terrible nightmare parents are facing trying to find baby formula for their kids,” Schumer said after the bill passed according to CNN. “It’s rare that we have unanimity in the Senate on important measures, and I wish we had more. But this is one of these important issues and I’m glad we’re acting with one voice.”
That bill has passed in the House with nine Republicans voting against it—the usual MAGA caucus suspects. Before that vote, though, 192 Republicans told American babies to starve, refusing to pass a relative paltry $28 million in emergency funding for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The bill would give the FDA extra funding to “prevent fraudulent products from being placed on shelves and to help acquire better data on the infant formula marketplace,” and to “strengthen the workforce focused on formula issues, and increases FDA inspection staff.” That bill did pass in the House 231-192, but prospects for it in the Senate are murky.
The Senate is also likely to bring a grinding halt to other House achievements for the week. On Wednesday, it passed legislation in response to the Buffalo white supremacist massacre. It would create domestic terrorism offices in three federal agencies. Just one Republican, Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, voted with Democrats on this one. A similar bill was passed back in September 2020 with a unanimous voice vote in the House. Republicans blocked it in the Senate in 2020 and will almost certainly do so again.
They’ll do the same with the oil company price-gouging bill the House passed Thursday. It would give the Federal Trade Commission authority to investigate price-gouging on the part of energy companies, a deterrence mechanism to try to prevent the oil companies from exploiting crises like global pandemics and wars. Every Republican voted against that, along with four “moderate” Democrats: Reps. Kathleen Rice of New York, Stephanie Murphy of Florida, Jared Golden of Maine, and Lizzie Fletcher of Texas.
All this happened in a week in which our old favorite band of nihilists in the House Freedom Caucus pissed off just about everybody. (Rand Paul can do it single-handedly in the Senate—it takes a caucus in the House.) The maniacs have been refusing to allow the uncontroversial stuff in the House from being passed under suspension of the rules and have been forcing dozens of roll call votes.
That eats up a lot of time. It also has messed up travel schedules and—this is what really chaps the asses of fellow Republicans—interfered with scheduled fundraisers. “Demanding roll call votes on every bill comes at a cost,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) told CNN. “Some of these vote series go on for hours, and members lose meetings with constituents as an example.” Even one anonymous Freedom Caucus maniac is opposed to the tactic. “It’s screwing all of us,” they told CNN, because it makes the caucus look unserious and weakens its influence. Yes, the very serious and influential Freedom Caucus is jeopardized by the actions of the Freedom Caucus.
“They’re like second graders, throwing tantrums every day,” said Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the chairman of the House Rules Committee, told CNN. “It’s clear (House Minority Leader) Kevin McCarthy has no control over his members. I get more complaints from Republicans about these votes than I do from Democrats.”
He doesn’t have a lot of sympathy for his Republican colleagues who are saying it takes way too long to have the votes on the roll call votes they are forcing. “Tough shit,” McGovern said. “They look like a bunch of clowns.”
They get a break, having no more floor votes scheduled until after the Memorial Day recess, coming back on June 7. The Senate will be back in next Tuesday, when perhaps they’ll be trying to figure out how to pass increasingly critical COVID-19 funding.
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