Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell fired the first shot Tuesday (Dec. 29) in what is likely to be weeklong battle over a proposal to send $2,000 stimulus checks to most Americans.
McConnell blocked consideration of a House bill that would up add another $1,400 to the $600 payments in the recently passed, $900 billion coronavirus relief package, according to The Washington Post.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer had requested the Senate take up the House bill, which was inspired by President Donald Trump’s 11th-hour call last week to up the amount of the stimulus checks in the relief bill to $2,000 apiece.
McConnell is likely to have won only a temporary respite, however, with an unlikely coalition of diehard, Trump-supporting Senate Republicans and Senate Democrats vowing to keep pushing for the $2,000 checks.
Senators pushing for the more generous payments — led by Republicans Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), and on the Democratic side by Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — plan to push for a vote in the coming day, according to The Washington Post.
Support on the Republican side of the aisle in the Senate appears to be growing, raising the potential for a bipartisan vote to pass the $2,000 checks, provided McConnell, a master of parliamentary maneuvering, is unable to prevent a vote from taking place.
Georgia’s two senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, both Republicans, have endorsed the measure as they scramble to keep their seats amid strong bids by a pair of Democratic challengers in next month’s run-off election.
Republican Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska also signaled her support for the larger stimulus checks, saying “people are hurting and we need to get them more aid,” per the Post report.
For his part, Sanders has vowed to hold up action in the Senate until McConnell allows a vote on the $2,000 stimulus checks to go forward.
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