McConnell blocks Senate vote on raising stimulus check amount to $2,000
University of Maryland professor Peter Morici weighs in on the stimulus showdown.
Democrats are wielding Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s decision to block swift action to deliver $2,000 coronavirus stimulus checks as a club to hammer the GOP incumbents in Georgia's Jan. 5 Senate runoff elections.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., summed up the party’s message in a tweet late Tuesday.
"Mitch McConnell, Kelly Loeffler & David Perdue are standing between your family and a $2,000 survival check Georgia," she posted, before urging voters to pull the lever for Democrat challengers Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff.
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) takes questions as he speaks during a news conference with other Senate Republicans on Dec. 15, 2020 in Washington, DC. McConnell objected to multiple Democrat attempts to quickly advance $2,000 stimulus checks through the Senate on Tuesday. (Photo by Tom Brenner-Pool/Getty Images)
Both Republican Georgia Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue have come out in support of President Trump’s push for the $2,000 stimulus checks.
But Democrats are trying to actively tie them to McConnell, who has not taken a decisive stand on the stimulus checks. McConnell said Tuesday that the Senate will "begin a process" and would bring Trump’s stimulus check demand and other remaining issues "into focus."
"Minority Leader Mitch McConnell," Ossoff tweeted Tuesday. "But only if you vote."
".@KLoeffler and @Perduesenate's promises are useless as long as Mitch McConnell controls the Senate and can block a #StimulusCheck they never really supported," Warnock added in his own tweet.
McConnell on the Senate floor Tuesday blocked maneuvers by two Democrats which would have fast-tracked the stimulus checks through the Senate. First, he objected to a request from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to immediately pass the House bill without a vote. That bill passed the lower chamber with greater than two-thirds support.
Then, McConnell objected to a request from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., to set the House bill up for a Wednesday up-or-down vote.
The majority leader later Tuesday introduced a bill that would increase stimulus checks to $2,000; repeal Section 230, the controversial legal protection for online platforms that Trump regularly rails against; and establish a committee on the Election Assistance Commission to study alleged irregularities in the 2020 elections.
In this July 15, 2020, file photo Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., puts on a face mask as she walks with Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., right, at UPS Hapeville Airport Hub in Atlanta. Both Perdue and Loeffler have said they support $2,000 stimulus checks. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
GEORGIA SENATE RUNOFF ENTERS FINAL SPRING ONE WEEK FROM ELECTION, CAMPAIGNS BRING OUT BIG GUNS
Perdue on "Fox & Friends" Wednesday said he supports the McConnell bill.
"The Democrats themselves held this up for months and so here in the last minute, they're complaining about the normal operation of the Senate. I'm an outsider of this process but I can tell you these things that Mitch McConnell is trying to do are in line with what the President has said," Perdue said. "I support what the President is trying to do relative to Section 230, the repeal of that and also the $2,000 stimulus checks. We're in full support of that."
McConnell on the Senate floor said the president had "linked" these three priorities on Tuesday, likely aiming to set the stage for an effort to address all of them together.
But it's highly unlikely that the Senate is able to scrounge the 60 votes needed to end debate on the bill. The bill, however, could provide political cover to GOP senators who want to say they voted in favor of stimulus checks while loading up the legislation with poison pills so it will not pass. Schumer called the bill a "cynical gambit."
At least five GOP senators have said at this point that they are in favor of $2,000 stimulus checks in some form. If all of those senators were to vote to end debate on the House stimulus check bill -- that is, assuming McConnell even brings it back to the floor -- then there would need to be seven more Republicans voting to support the checks to break a filibuster.
It's likely that many Democrats would vote against the McConnell bill, meaning if that bill reaches a vote to end debate then it would need significantly more Republicans to support it than have come out in favor $2,000 checks so far.
Raphael Warnock (left) and Jon Ossoff (right) are the Democratic candidates in the Jan. 5 Senate runoff elections in Georgia. The Democratic candidates and their allies slammed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., for blocking a swift vote on $2,000 stimulus checks in the Senate. (Getty/AP) (Getty Images // AP)
The Republican candidates in the race, meanwhile, are warning of an unencumbered Biden presidency if Democrats gain a Senate majority.
"You just have to listen to Chuck Schumer: take Georgia, change America," Perdue said Tuesday on "America's Newsroom," loosely quoting the minority leader. "What he means by that is he wants to change the filibuster rule, add two states — two Democratic states that'd be four Democratic seats. He wants to stack the Supreme Court and eventually change the way the Electoral College operates."
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Perdue added: "That would allow them to perpetrate the agenda that's in the Democratic platform that was on display in the presidential election. They want open borders, they want to defund the police, they want illegal immigrants to vote."
"This is it. It all comes down to this," Loeffler campaign communications director Stephen Lawson told Fox News this week, summing up the campaign's closing message to voters at the end of a race in which the common refrain has been "everything is on the line."
Republicans currently control 50 U.S. Senate seats, meaning that if they win one of the Georgia races then they will have a majority in the upper chamber and an effective veto on much of the Biden agenda.
If Democrats sweep the Georgia races, however, then they will bring the body to an effective 50-50 tie. This would allow Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to break ties on votes that fall along party lines.
Fox News' Eddie DeMarche contributed to this report.
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