The House is out until next week, a decision made yesterday in light of a possible plot to attack the Capitol today inspired by the pro-Trump conspiracy theory known as QAnon. Intelligence analysts had spent weeks tracking online chatter by some QAnon adherents who have latched on to March 4th, the original inauguration date set in the Constitution, as the day disgraced former President Donald J. Trump would be restored to the presidency and renew his crusade against America’s enemies. While the warning did not definitively say militia groups planned to come to Washington, the analysts said that continued false statements of election fraud and narratives elevated by QAnon “may contribute” to extremists turning to violence. Those extremists were inspired to target March 4 by QAnon conspiracists who said Mr. Trump would be inaugurated on that date and eventually “return to power,” after the current President is forcibly removed. Leaving nothing to chance, House leaders on Wednesday abruptly moved a vote on policing legislation from Thursday to Wednesday night, so lawmakers could leave town. House Democrats condensed their voting schedule to not only vote on Democrats’ sweeping voting rights and anti-corruption bill, which was originally slated to hit the House floor yesterday evening, but they also pushed ahead with a late vote last night to approve a major overhaul of American policing. The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, an expansive policing overhaul measure was named for the 46-year-old Black man who died last Memorial Day after a Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee against his neck for over nine minutes. The bill passed 220 to 212 along mostly party lines, with two Democrats, Reps. Jared Golden (Maine) and Ron Kind (Wisconsin), voting against it, and one Republican, Rep. Lance Gooden (Texas), accidentally voting for it. House Democrats also pushed through a sweeping expansion of federal voting rights on Wednesday over unified Republican opposition, opening a new front in a raging national debate about elections aimed at countering G.O.P. attempts to clamp down on ballot access. The bill, adopted 220 to 210 mostly along party lines, would constitute the most significant enhancement of federal voting protections since the 1960s if it became law. It aims to impose new national requirements weakening restrictive state voter ID laws, mandate automatic voter registration, expand early and mail-in voting, make it harder to purge voter rolls and restore voting rights to former felons — changes that studies suggest would increase voter participation, especially by racial minorities. The House will next reconvene at noon on Monday, March 8th.
The Senate stands adjourned until 12:00 noon at which time it plans to vote on the motion to proceed to the American Rescue Plan. In spite of the fact more than 400 national and local organizations from across the country have urged the Senate to pass the American Rescue Plan and deliver much-needed aid and assistance to states and local areas and more than 60 percent of Americans support it, Republicans continue to try to slow the process down. The Senate enters the final stages of debating the bill, with passage in the chamber likely pushed off until the weekend. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) had planned to kick off the process Wednesday night but lacked an official cost estimate on the latest version of the bill, which has been trimmed down from the House-passed measure. In addition to stripping out a minimum-wage increase to comply with Senate rules, President Biden agreed to moderate Democrats’ demands for tightening eligibility for $1,400 stimulus checks, which will also affect the Congressional Budget Office’s calculation of the overall price tag. As Republicans try to slow the process, Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, says he’ll demand an entire reading of the 700-page bill — something that could take 10 hours. After that, will come as much as 20 hours of debate. Democrats are aiming to resolve their outstanding differences before the vote-a-rama. Once that starts, the danger is that Republicans could reshape some of the provisions by peeling off just one Democrat. Indeed, retiring GOP Senator Rob Portman of Ohio said Wednesday he’s working on vote-a-rama amendments to further target the bill. The payments begin phasing out above $75,000 in annual income for individuals and $150,000 for couples, the same as set in the House bill. But under the Biden-backed Senate Democratic compromise, payments would fully phase out for individuals making more than $80,000, compared with a $100,000 cap in the House-passed bill. And the full phase-out for couples would be $160,000 instead of $200,000. A separate push by moderates to trim supplemental unemployment benefits to $300-a-week from the $400 approved in the House won’t be included in what is initially brought to the Senate floor.
President Biden plans to host a bipartisan group of House members at the White House on Thursday as he prepares to push a major infrastructure package, his next ambitious goal following the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief legislation that is pending in the Senate. The top Democrat on the House’s transportation committee is adamant a forthcoming infrastructure package cannot go through a process that would allow only Democrats to pass it. House Transportation and Infrastructure Chair Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) said there “is no possible way” a planned infrastructure bill could go through the budget reconciliation process. DeFazio said he’ll make his concerns clear to Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg during a meeting today with a bipartisan group of lawmakers on infrastructure.
