House Democrats planned to send lawmakers home for the year by Friday, but a stalled deal on government spending and a vote to override President Trump’s likely veto of a defense policy bill could delay the end of the session.
Congress has yet to secure a bipartisan deal on fiscal 2021 government spending and will vote this week on a short-term bill to keep the government operating until Dec. 18. Leadership in both parties are also negotiating a coronavirus aid package they plan to attach to the government spending bill, and there is no deal on that measure, either.
The Senate could also remain in session for two additional weeks.
“We’ve reached the time of year when the Senate has more important outstanding business than we have days to complete it,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said Monday.
The House will vote Tuesday on the National Defense Authorization Act, an annual bill setting spending and policy for the military. The Senate is also expected to take up the measure this week.
While the NDAA will win overwhelming support from both parties, Trump said he’ll veto it because it does not include a provision to eliminate a lawsuit liability shield for Big Tech. Trump and many conservatives believe the liability shield should be reformed or eliminated in part because major social media platforms appear to censure or ban conservative posts more frequently than others.
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, told reporters in the Capitol Monday that lawmakers will vote to override Trump if he vetoes the defense bill, and that could require the House to remain in session much later in December than initially planned.
Hoyer said Democrats won’t allow Trump to kill the measure through a pocket veto, which is permitted under the Constitution if Congress adjourns for the session after sending a bill to the president and he refuses to sign it.
Party lawmakers appeared frustrated Monday over the remaining sticking points in both the fiscal 2021 spending measure and the coronavirus relief bill.
A bipartisan group of top Senate negotiators was scheduled to meet Monday night to work out the disagreements on a coronavirus aid package, which revolve around state and local aid and a provision providing lawsuit liability protection for businesses, healthcare facilities, and schools.
Democrats have offered a six-month lawsuit shield for coronavirus-related cases, but GOP lawmakers are seeking a moratorium until states can work out their own liability laws relating to the pandemic.
The lawsuit shield language GOP lawmakers have proposed would exclude gross negligence.
Democrats, meanwhile, want the coronavirus measure to include robust aid for state, local, and tribal governments to compensate for a steep decline in tax revenue due to coronavirus lockdowns.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers pitched a $908 billion compromise measure last week, but the legislative text will likely be delayed until later this week so that lawmakers can work out a deal on the liability shield and state and local funding.
“So far, there has been no movement at all,” Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican helping to lead the negotiations, told reporters in the Capitol on Monday.
Some lawmakers in both parties are pushing to include a new round of stimulus checks, which are not part of the bipartisan bill so far.
Democratic and Republican leaders have yet to hash out major differences on the fiscal spending bill.
Democrats are insisting on including provisions from a police reform bill the House passed earlier this year, which Republicans opposed. The provisions would require training and tracking of police actions and are aimed at reducing police misconduct. They were written following the death of George Floyd, a black man whose death in police custody sparked nationwide protests.
The GOP wants the 2021 measure to include some of Trump’s funding request for constructing the southern border wall, which Democrats oppose.
Without a deal, the two sides may end up passing another stopgap bill next week that would likely last into the first quarter next year.
A coronavirus aid package could be attached to that short-term measure, Senate Majority Whip John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said Monday.
The two parties continued public political posturing Monday, even as they engaged in substantive negotiations privately.
“We Democrats have been trying since the spring, back when Republicans were saying they did not feel the urgency of acting,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said Monday. “Well, it’s going to take a sense of urgency now, and it’s going to take a willingness to give a little. Not just to put your bill on the floor and say take it or leave it.”
McConnell criticized Democrats for refusing to negotiate on a more targeted measure than the $2.2 trillion-$3.7 trillion package Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, have insisted on passing since last summer.
“The speaker of the House and the Democratic leader have spent months tying the most bipartisan, commonsense policies to their most controversial requests and saying the country can’t get the former unless they get the latter,” McConnell said Monday. “Their strategy has been all or nothing. And so, struggling Americans have gotten nothing.”
