The House and Senate plan to return after the election for the traditional “lame duck” session, but what they are able to accomplish hinges on who wins on Election Day.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters last week she’s ready to pass a long-stalled coronavirus aid deal with Republicans as soon as lawmakers return after the election. The House scheduled its first post-election votes on Nov. 16. The Senate returns Nov. 9, which leaves just a few legislative weeks until Congress gavels out for the year.
The California Democrat said she is confident in a victory for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and is eager to move the aid package during the lame-duck session in order to make room for the rest of the Democratic agenda that Biden and Pelosi would like to implement beginning in 2021. Democrats are also increasingly optimistic they can win back the Senate majority, which would give them control over the two branches and clear the way for implementing a sweeping agenda on healthcare, green energy, election reform, and more.
“We want to have as clean a slate as possible going into January,” Pelosi said.
President Trump has also pledged a coronavirus deal after the election, predicting that he will win a second term, the Senate will remain in GOP hands, and Republicans will defy all polls and regain control of the House.
“After the election, we’ll get the best stimulus package you’ve ever seen,” Trump said on Oct. 27.
But Republicans, who no matter the outcome on Nov. 3 will remain in charge of the Senate until year’s end, aren’t likely to sign on to a big, lame-duck spending bill, especially if Democrats win the majority in the Senate.
Senate Republicans do not support a stimulus proposal anywhere near the size and scope of the $2.4 trillion package Pelosi is seeking. McConnell has twice brought to the floor a package worth $500 billion, which garnered the support of all but one Republican vote but was blocked by Democrats, who said it was too narrow.
The Senate GOP won’t be in the mood to negotiate on a more expensive deal in November, especially if they lose, which is a real possibility.
Republicans now control 53 votes. Democrats need to win only four Republican seats to regain the Senate. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report found Democrats “remain favorites to take the Senate.”
A Democratic victory in the Senate would leave Pelosi to negotiate with a lame-duck Republican Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, who has resisted the big spending proposal that Democrats are pushing.
Lame-duck sessions are typically unproductive. Lawmakers tend to focus on must-pass government spending bills and little else.
When House Democrats swept out the GOP in the 2006 midterm election, Republicans abandoned efforts to pass spending bills, leaving the 2007 government funding in the hands of the new Democratic majority.
The Democratic House and Republican Senate will have to decide during the lame-duck session whether to come up with a yearlong spending deal for fiscal year 2021 or pass another short-term spending resolution to replace one that expires on Dec. 11. Most lawmakers believe the two parties will strike a short-term deal because it will be impossible to resolve partisan sticking points that have so far blocked full-year funding.
“I think the lame duck is a really hard time to get much done,” said Sen. Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican and the former House majority leader. “It’s a hard time to get much done in any lame duck, and I don’t see why this one would be different.”
Pelosi has been negotiating for weeks with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who is working on behalf of the president. Pelosi hasn’t spoken with Trump in more than a year. She called his Republican House takeover prediction “delusional.”
The talks between Pelosi and Mnuchin have not produced anything close to a deal, mostly because Democrats want nearly $500 billion for state, local, and tribal governments that the GOP is rejecting. Pelosi is also refusing to agree to lawsuit liability protections that McConnell said must be included in the legislation he agrees to bring to the floor.
Instead, Democrats have gone in the opposite direction and want the bill to include more worker safety requirements.
Pelosi sent a letter last week to Mnuchin that listed the Democrats’ demands for a stimulus deal.
“The President’s words that ‘after the election, we will get the best stimulus package you have ever seen’ only have meaning if he can get Mitch McConnell to take his hand off the pause button and get Senate Republican Chairmen moving toward agreement with their House counterparts,” Pelosi wrote to Mnuchin.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat poised to become Senate majority leader if his party retakes the chamber, is looking to January. He told MSNBC that Democrats will be able to pass a major stimulus measure in the new year if they control Congress and the White House.
The delay is no help to businesses and people hoping for a new round of loans and stimulus checks to help them through more economic lockdowns.
“If we win by a lot, you never know what will happen in the lame duck,” Schumer said.
