Afrigather WASHINGTON — The Senate voted on Thursday to cross a $1.7 trillion government funding bill, sending it to the Home to keep away from a vacation shutdown.
The vote was 68-29 on sweeping laws that can preserve the federal government funded by means of subsequent fall and overhaul election legal guidelines in an try to forestall one other Jan. 6. It got here after votes on a potpourri of amendments, together with landmark office protections for pregnant and breastfeeding workers.
The invoice additionally consists of almost $45 billion of further navy, financial and humanitarian help to Ukraine.
“Plenty of laborious work, numerous compromise, however we funded the federal government with an aggressive funding in American households, American employees, American nationwide protection,” Senate Majority Chief Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., informed reporters moments after the laws handed. “It’s one of the important appropriations packages we’ve finished in a extremely very long time.”
The invoice now heads to the Home, which has yet another day to cross it earlier than a authorities shutdown on Friday at midnight. Speaker Nancy Pelosi mentioned earlier that “our hope” was that the Home would cross the invoice on Thursday evening given the extreme winter storms placing lawmakers’ journey plans in jeopardy earlier than the vacations.
After it passes the Home, the laws goes to President Joe Biden, who has indicated he’ll signal it into legislation.
The laws has divided the Republican Celebration, with Senate Minority Chief Mitch McConnell of Kentucky endorsing it and Home Minority Chief Kevin McCarthy of California pushing to torpedo it as he courts right-wing votes to develop into speaker.
“That is a formidable consequence for the Republican negotiators,” McConnell mentioned, praising the invoice’s protection spending will increase relative to home nondefense funding as a victory for the GOP.
The invoice overcame a last-minute snag late Wednesday over a GOP-demanded modification to maintain the Trump-era Title 42 border coverage in place. Democrats agreed to carry a vote on their modification, alongside a Democratic different modification. Each failed, and the fragile coalition for the invoice stayed intact. However different amendments have been accepted.
After a years-long struggle Senators accepted the inclusion of the Pregnant Employees Equity Act as a part of the omnibus, providing protections from discrimination for pregnant employees. The last-ditch effort was led by Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., Richard Burr, R-N.C., Invoice Cassidy, R-La., and Bob Casey, D-Pa.
“For a lot too lengthy, too many employees enthusiastic about welcoming a brand new child needed to fear about dropping their jobs — all as a result of their employers might deny them fundamental, low-cost lodging like a rest room break or a stool to take a seat on,” Murray mentioned in an announcement, calling the measure “an enormous and necessary step ahead.”
One other invoice increasing lodging for pumping within the office additionally handed as a part of the tranche of amendments, cementing one other victory for pregnant girls and new mothers. That measure was supplied by Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.
In a statement, Murkowski known as the modification’s passage “good progress towards guaranteeing no mom ever has to decide on between a job and nursing her youngster.”
The omnibus invoice moved ahead within the Senate on Tuesday in a 75-20 vote, overcoming staunch opposition from conservative Republicans to win the 60 votes essential to guarantee passage. Earlier than the ultimate vote Wednesday, the chamber defeated a sequence of amendments that GOP members had demanded in trade for dropping their threats of dragging out the invoice for days.
A kind of opponents, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, pushed again on McConnell’s view. “I don’t perceive how that’s an enormous win for Republicans,” he mentioned. “I do assume that is dangerous to Republicans. We’ve got a Republican chief within the Home and a Republican chief within the Senate taking diametrically opposed positions. And I’m with McCarthy on this one.”
Within the Home, GOP leaders are pressuring members to vote towards the invoice, which should depend on principally Democratic votes to cross.
The workplace of Home Minority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana informed GOP lawmakers the invoice was “designed to sideline the incoming Republican Home Majority by extending many applications for a number of years” and criticized its “giant funding will increase” for Democratic priorities.
The laws additionally features a rewrite of an 1887 federal election law to shut loopholes that then-President Donald Trump and his crew sought to take advantage of on Jan. 6, 2021, geared toward making it tougher for presidential candidates to steal future elections. It additionally grants extra funds to the Justice Department for Jan. 6 prosecutions.
Schumer mentioned the election measures within the invoice would “protect our democracy for generations to return.”
Trump mentioned it was “most likely higher” to reject the election modifications.
“I don’t care whether or not they change The Electoral Rely Act or not, most likely higher to depart it the way in which it’s so that it may be adjusted in case of Fraud,” he wrote on his social media platform, arguing that the need in Congress to make clear the legislation validates his perception that the vice chairman had the facility to overturn the 2020 consequence.
Proponents of the modifications say the 1887 legislation is poorly written however was by no means meant to offer the vice chairman such energy — and that this new laws would make that abundantly clear.
“It’s going to cease the sort of stuff we noticed on Jan. 6, the place a sitting president tried to take the election and develop into dictator of this nation,” Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, a reasonable Democrat, mentioned Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “It’s an necessary piece of laws that was labored on in a bipartisan manner.”
