The House will continue work today on the budget reconciliation process as committees assemble the massive COVID relief package. The Ways and Means Committee begins its markup at 10 a.m. Subtitles A-I. The Transportation and Infrastructure Committee markup starts at 11 a.m. Text. The Financial Services Committee markup is at 12 p.m. Text. The Budget Committee markup is at 2 p.m. Text. The Small Business Committee markup is at 5 p.m. Text.
The Senate will convene at 10 am and the Senate Budget Committee has a full committee hearing on the nomination of Neera Tanden to be director of the OMB.
At 12 pm, the Senate impeachment trial resumes. The Senate voted to move forward with former President Donald J. Trump’s impeachment trial on Tuesday, with a majority of senators determining they have jurisdiction to place former presidents on trial in cases of impeachment. By a vote of 56 to 44, the Senate rejected arguments by Mr. Trump’s attorneys, David Schoen and Bruce Castor Jr. who asserted that holding an impeachment trial of a former president is unconstitutional. Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana joined Democrats in voting against ending Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, a surprise reversal that Cassidy said was a response to the former president’s lawyers doing “a terrible job” of arguing their case. The other Republican senators who voted that the impeachment trial was consistent with the Constitution are; Senator Susan Collins of Maine, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, and Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.
The House Democrats prosecuting former President Donald J. Trump will formally begin presenting their case today, but they face a steep climb if they hope to persuade enough Senate Republicans to actually convict the defendant. With more chilling video footage documenting last month’s deadly assault on the Capitol, including unseen security camera footage, the House managers plan to contend that Mr. Trump’s months long barrage of false claims about the election he decisively lost on November 3rd and his fiery language at a rally near the White House on January 6th provoked the mob of supporters who stormed Congress in an effort to block ratification of his defeat. Taking aim at Republican senators drifting toward acquittal, they plan to argue that none of the deadly violence that followed would have happened without him. The House impeachment managers have up to 16 hours over two days, though both sides are limited to eight hours of arguments each day.
Today, at the White House, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris announced members of the Biden-Harris COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force. The COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force will provide recommendations for addressing health inequities caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and for preventing such inequities in the future.
