Senate's COVID stimulus 'vote-a-rama' turned out to be a Schumer power play

Republicans are insisting that Democrats craft a narrow, targeted COVID relief bill. GOPers grouse that the upcoming plan will reach too far afield and be too costly. And, they want to have a say in the bill.

Democrats recently prepped a budget measure to help them tackle the sixth round of coronavirus legislation. But many Republican amendments to that budget framework had little if anything to deal with public health or economic recovery.

The Senate conducted an 15-hour “vote-a-rama” on the budget Thursday that bled into the wee hours of Friday morning. A “vote-a-rama” is exactly what it sounds like. When considering a budget resolution, the Senate often conducts a series of votes, one after another, for hours on end. In 2008, the Senate voted on 44 amendments. Last week the Senate conducted “only” 41 roll call votes. But Senators ultimately prepared an eye-popping 889 amendments for this exercise.

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It’s easier to keep track of the new variants of coronavirus than amendments in a Senate vote-a-rama.

The amendments covered the political and policy spectrum. Many proposals were nowhere near the same galaxy as addressing the pandemic or the economy.

Consider some of the amendments:

Requiring a photo ID to vote in federal elections. Barring the use of taxpayer funds for abortions. Halting funding to universities that violate the First Amendment. Preservation of the southern border wall. Backing relations between Israel and other nations. Export controls for Huawei. Promoting women in the trucking industry. Opposition to government-run health care. Support for the U.S. Coast Guard in the Arctic. Something called “Roads Instead of the Green New Deal in Peru.” Evaluating the Anglophone crisis in Cameroon.

You get the idea.

The budget process is the congressional equivalent of GameStop. Everyone gets revved up about budgets. But there’s not much value to it.

Congressional “budgets” aren’t binding. So, both sides engineer a host of amendments, weaponized to get their political adversaries on the record on challenging issues. These are the “gotcha” votes the parties deploy come election time.

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That said, the vote-a-rama provides insight into where members stand on important subjects of the day.

Perhaps one of the most revealing proposals was a plan barring an increase in the minimum wage during the pandemic authored by Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa. The Senate approved the idea via voice vote. That’s where senators aren’t recorded. They simply shout yea or nay in the chamber and the loudest side wins.

Democrats have long pushed for an increase in the minimum wage – maybe even attaching a new national wage standard to the COVID bill. But that’s not in the cards now. The vote on the Ernst amendment also revealed reality. It showed just how tough approving a higher minimum wage can be – despite Democratic promises to their base.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., also teamed up with Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, to craft an amendment that targets direct stimulus checks for middle- and low-income earners. The Senate approved that bipartisan proposal.

But bipartisanship on COVID assistance may just be a mirage.

Democrats had ulterior motives to tackling a budget resolution. A budget plan could allow them to go it alone on their $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill. Approving the budget measure permits Democrats to extinguish filibusters on this bill only, via a special parliamentary gambit known as budget reconciliation.

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“It is a reconciliation bill, which means we can pass it with 51 votes in the Senate,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. “It would be my honor that we don’t have to use it as a reconciliation bill – that we will be able to have bipartisanship.”

Republicans view that as lip service.

“We’d like to be invited to the table,” said Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan.

Still Democrats bragged about bipartisanship during the nocturnal voting spree.

“Many bipartisan amendments were adopted. So this was a bipartisan activity,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “In fact, the first amendment which will help the restaurants was done by Sens. (Kyrsten) Sinema, D-Ariz., and (Roger) Wicker, R-Miss."

But it was Schumer himself who nullified bipartisanship.

There may have been 889 amendments in play for the budget resolution. Senators may have taken 41 roll call votes on amendments. But the only amendment that mattered was the last one, offered by Schumer.

Per custom, the Senate majority leader often finishes legislation with what’s called a “substitute” amendment. Amendments about the border wall and female truckers and Peru? Those are all just garden variety amendments. But a “substitute” amendment is just that. A switcho-chango. A substitute amendment rips out everything that’s in the bill and inserts brand-new legislative text.

The contents of the budget resolution morphed organically during the vote-a-rama. The Senate accepting some amendments. Rejecting others. But the substitute altered everything at once. And just before the sun rose Friday morning, the Senate adopted Schumer’s bigfoot amendment. Vice President Harris was in the chair, breaking a partisan tie. It was Harris’ first vote breaking a tie as vice president. Democrats voted in lockstep to accept Schumer’s substitute amendment, erasing 15 hours of work.

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This is ironic. During an appearance on Fox, Manchin touted the virtues of working across the aisle on the COVID measure.

“We’re going to make this work in a bipartisan way. My friends on the other side are going to have input. We’re going to do something that we can agree on. I’m not just going to do it just down the lines of saying (it’s) a party-line vote,” said Manchin to "Special Report" host Bret Baier.

But Manchin’s vote on the substitute amendment shattered his own direct payment plan, forged with Collins.

At 5:35 a.m. Friday, Harris cast her second tie-breaking vote. This was on the actual budget resolution itself. The Senate then shipped the package to the House. The House voted midday Friday to align with the Senate. With the House and Senate in agreement, lawmakers could then begin to prep a budget reconciliation package that would carry the actual coronavirus relief measure.

No budget, no budget reconciliation process is available. But with budget reconciliation, Democrats can ignore a filibuster and pass the bill the way they want.

Without Republicans.