For months, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's foremost demand in coronavirus relief, one of his hostage demands, has been lifting the threat of liability for schools and businesses when they put people in danger of coronavirus infection. It's also been clear for months that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce had this at the top of their wish list.
It turns out they didn't just tell McConnell what they wanted, they handed him the draft bill for it. The Washington Post is reporting that the Chamber's "Institute for Legal Reform wrote draft legislation designed to shield companies from liability related to the pandemic and distributed it to state and federal lawmakers, according to a top executive." That top executive is Matthew Webb, senior vice president for legal reform policy at the Chamber, reported this on a Zoom teleconference with the Texas Chamber of Commerce that was recorded and uploaded June 1 on the Texas Chamber's YouTube page. "What we're concerned about, and advocating for with Congress, is you don't want to wait until all the cases are filed […] you have to deal with this beforehand," a statement that undoubtedly inspired McConnell's rhetoric that there will be an "epidemic of lawsuits" in the wake of the pandemic, an assertion that so far has no basis in reality.
On the broadcast teleconference, Webb boasts that they have worked "very closely" with McConnell and with Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn to draft the legislation, and "what [liability] reforms look like in their package." He told the Texas Chamber that the two were "putting their touches on it, as well, which I don't expect to be anything that would be of concern from the U.S. Chamber's perspective." Of course not, because the Chamber gave them their marching orders.
Cornyn's team isn't very pleased with the Chamber taking credit for what they say is his work, the Post reports. "Drew Brandewie, a spokesman for Cornyn, said his office distributed a first draft of its own on May 6 and started working on coronavirus liability issues 'two months before the Chamber claims to have written our bill.'" McConnell's staff declined to respond directly to the Post's questions about the Chamber's involvement, instead pointing the reporters to one of McConnell's statements on liability.
Given that Webb had this call weeks before the Republicans introduced their version of coronavirus relief, the inadequate HEALS Act, and in the call described "detailed policy proposals that eventually were included in the Republican-sponsored legislation," Cornyn and McConnell's protestations ring pretty darned empty.
McConnell has made the liability reforms the single thing he refuses to negotiate. No bill, he has said numerous times, will reach the Senate floor without it. That might be because the Chamber has coughed up more than $31,000 so far to McConnell's reelection campaign, through its employees, members, and affiliated political action groups. That's the largest contribution they've made this year, "and the most the group has given in recent years to a single candidate not running for president," the Post reports. Cornyn's received $10,000. Clearly keeping McConnell around is their highest priority.
