As the Senate returns to Washington, Congressional leadership postures on next relief bill

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, KY) declared the entire 100 members of the U.S. Senate will convene beginning Monday, with discussions beginning for the contents of the next Coronavirus Pandemic stimulus bill.

McConnell makes very clear where the next relief bill must go.

His entire statement from Monday, the 27th of April is below, with emphasis added:

“Senators will return to Washington D.C. one week from today. We will modify routines in ways that are smart and safe, but we will honor our constitutional duty to the American people and conduct critical business in person. If it is essential for doctors, nurses, healthcare workers, truck drivers, grocery-store workers, and many other brave Americans to keep carefully manning their own duty stations, then it is essential for Senators to carefully man ours and support them.

“The Senate must focus on concrete steps to strengthen our response to this complex crisis. We cannot get distracted by pre-existing partisan wish-lists or calls to paper over decades of reckless decisions that had nothing to do with COVID-19.

“Here is just one example of an urgent need. While our nation is asking everyone from front-line healthcare professionals to essential small-business owners to major employers to adapt in new ways and keep serving, a massive tangle of federal and state laws could easily mean their heroic efforts are met with years of endless lawsuits.

“We cannot let that happen.  Our nation is facing the worst pandemic in over a century and potentially the worst economic shock since the Great Depression. Our response must not be slowed, weakened, or exploited to set up the biggest trial lawyer bonanza in history.

“The brave healthcare workers battling this virus and the entrepreneurs who will re-open our economy deserve strong protections from opportunistic lawsuits. Some such protections were included in the bipartisan CARES Act. We will need to expand and strengthen them.

“Republicans will proudly insist on these and other strong, pro-certainty, pro-growth reforms throughout any and all future discussions. The American people do not need tangential left-wing daydreams. They need commonsense steps that move us toward the response, recovery, and future readiness that Americans need and deserve.

“This crisis has every part of our society in dire need of stability, clarity, and certainty. The Senate has already stepped up, but our work is not over. I look forward to seeing all my colleagues next Monday.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, statement 4/27/20
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UPDATE: On Tuesday morning, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer reversed their Monday decision, and the full House will not return on Monday. House leadership will return to begin drafting the next Coronavirus stimulus package.

Previously, mid Monday afternoon, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer announced the House will return to the Capitol next Monday, as well.

According to The Hill from last Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats want an expansion of funding for unemployment benefits, food stamps, testing and medical-safety equipment.

But the most controversial proposal which will be a fight with both the Trump Administration and Republicans is Democrats’ wanting provisions to protect November’s elections, by providing states with funding to establish all-mail voting — a system designed to encourage participation even for those voters wary of the health risk of visiting the polls in person.

While in Illinois, voters have the right to choose to cast their ballots by mail, in-person early voting or in-person on election day, moving to all mail-in balloting for the presidential election will open up many challenges, most notably with fraud and in particular, ballot/vote harvesting.

So what is “ballot harvesting”? According to Wikipedia:

Ballot harvesting, also called vote harvesting, is the collecting and submitting of absentee or mail-in voter ballots by volunteers or workers. It occurs in some areas of the U.S. where voting by mail is common, but is illegal in some other states.

Arizona banned the practice except for family members and caregivers. The Supreme Court stayed a Ninth Circuit Court ruling that overturned the ban in 2016, and a U.S. District Court judge upheld the ban in 2018.

California changed its rules before the 2018 midterm elections to allow persons other than family members to collect and submit ballots. Last-minute submissions of votes in the election delayed results and some argued that it altered the outcome of several elections.

Ballot harvesting is not legal in North Carolina.

Vote harvesting is illegal in Texas, where state law mandates that absentee ballots cannot be sent by a person on another’s behalf.  In 2013, a state bill was passed, aiming to prevent ballot harvesting by making it a misdemeanor to give or receive compensation for collecting mail-in ballots in any election.  People have been prosecuted in the state for doing it.

Wikipedia
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Last year, during committee hearings for the Securing America’s Federal Elections (SAFE) Act, or H.R. 2722, House Republicans attempted to introduce several amendments into the legislation, which included outlawing ballot harvesting. The House Democrats rejected all of the amendments.

The bill was approved last June in the House by a nearly straight party line vote, with only one Republican voting with the Democrats in one of many partisan votes in the House. It is going nowhere in the Senate as is.

Ballot harvesting has been brought up in my church by both a lay leader and the senior pastor, most recently yesterday during virtual Sunday service. Average citizens know what ballot harvesting is, and Congress will be watched to see if all mail-in voting will take place, will Congress outlaw ballot harvesting as condition to receive federal funding as part of CARES 2?

The CARES 2 negotiations will be interesting.