Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the co-chairwoman of the Progressive Caucus, announced her intention to vote against the $3 trillion spending bill favored by Democratic leadership.
How Jayapal and her cohort of liberal lawmakers vote on this legislation matters because it will likely not receive any votes from the Republicans in the House, thus giving the Democrats a small margin for party defectors to pass the legislation.
The Washington state lawmaker revealed her plan to buck the party while speaking to C-SPAN on Friday. She laid out three reasons for her decision to vote against the “incredibly important vote.”
“I think that for us, as Democrats, we should be putting forward our plan of a couple of things, how we keep people from getting unemployed, how we stop mass unemployment, how do we keep paychecks in people’s pockets? The second thing is how do we cover healthcare for everybody,” Jayapal said. “And the third is how do we protect businesses from shuttering. And those three big things are critically important.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is moving ahead with the vote, which is scheduled for Friday despite calls from Jayapal to postpone it.
The bill would provide $1 trillion to state, local, municipal, and tribal governments to help them keep operating without the tax revenue lost because of the economic shutdown. It would allocate $200 billion in “hazard pay” for working in grocery stores, medical facilities, and other front-line jobs. The legislation would provide a new round of $1,200 direct payments to individuals and an extension to January of the $600 in extra unemployment insurance benefits now provided to those who lost jobs in the pandemic.
The measure also calls for $175 billion to pay for rent, mortgages, utilities, and other housing costs for those who cannot pay.
On a Wednesday conference call, Pelosi insisted “there is no perfect bill” to fellow lawmakers. The California Democrat also said the spending measure would provide much-needed aid to the country weeks into an economic shutdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
The Republican-majority Senate is opposed to the bill, but GOP lawmakers will likely have to negotiate with Democrats on new spending legislation in the coming weeks to help underfunded states.
President Trump on Wednesday called the House bill “D.O.A.”
