Senate Republicans said Tuesday they have no plans to rewrite a $1.1 billion measure to fight the Zika virus and will instead hold a second vote next week on the same legislation Democrats blocked hours ago.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., called on the GOP to sit down and write a new bill that can win Democratic support.
But McConnell said Democrats need to accept that they do not hold majorities in either chamber.
“I would say to my Democratic friends, there are some disadvantages to being in the minority,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said. “You don’t get everything exactly the way you want.”
Democrats and one Republican voted against advancing the Zika funding measure earlier Tuesday, ending any chance it could have been signed into law before the stated goal of July 4.
McConnell told reporters Democrats won’t get a new offer. Republicans, he said, would not allow any changes to the legislation, which passed the House on a party line vote last week. He suggested there would be no new measure put forward by the time both chambers gavel to a close for the summer by July 15, not returning until after Sept. 5.
“The negotiations are already occurred,” McConnell said when reporters asked whether the GOP would try to craft a bill that can win Democratic votes. “You can nit-pick until you are blue in the face, but this is the product that will meet the deadline, get down to the president for his signature and get about the business of killing mosquitos and hasten the effort to get a vaccine at the earliest possible time.”
Democrats say they are opposed to the bill because it is paid for with existing funds, including $543 million from a defunct healthcare exchange program for U.S. territories and $100 million from an unused fund for combating the Ebola virus.
“An emergency is an emergency,” Reid told reporters Tuesday. “You can’t have offsets for emergencies.”
Reid warned it would set a bad precedent for future emergency spending bills, “if we start down that path.”
Democrats say the measure includes “poison pills” such as a provision that would prevent extra healthcare funds for Puerto Rico from being used at Planned Parenthood clinics, which provide abortions. Another provision Democrats oppose would temporarily lift some EPA regulations in order increase pesticide spraying for mosquitos near water.
