Democrats in the U.S. Senate took the first step Tuesday toward a $1.9 trillion coronavirus aid bill through a process that would allow it to pass without any Republican votes.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski was at the White House on Monday, urging President Biden to consider an alternative — a much smaller aid bill that would get 10 Republican votes. Murkowski said Biden shouldn’t pass up an opportunity for bipartisanship where it’s possible.
“There’s going to be some really hard things with immigration, with some of the environmental initiatives in the agenda. There’s minimum wage. There’s just going to be a lot out there that we’re not going to agree on,” she said. “So why not take the one area where we have demonstrated, at a really difficult time, that we can come together and do that with this next round of COVID relief?”
Democrats say the alternative Murkowski backs is too small to match the damage the pandemic continues to inflict on families and the economy.
Instead, Democratic leaders in the Senate are using budget reconciliation, a special type of bill that can pass the Senate with a simple majority instead of the usual 60-vote minimum. But it requires a lot of committee work and a legislative ordeal known as “vote-a-rama.”
One of the arguments Murkowski said she helped present to Biden was that a bipartisan bill would get the money where it needs to go sooner than budget reconciliation will.
“It’s going to be a multi-month process,” she said in an interview Tuesday. “You might be able to get there with only 51 votes. But you can’t shortcut this process by much time at all.”
Both Alaska Senators voted against the budget resolution, the first step in the process. It passed 50-49.
Murkowski and Sen. Dan Sullivan also voted Tuesday to confirm two of Biden’s cabinet secretaries: Alejandro Mayorkas for Homeland Security and Pete Buttigieg for Transportation.
