The Senate’s cutting room floor

THE TOP

Happy Wednesday morning.

Let’s start by saying this: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer came into this week with high hopes. He wanted to confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. He was eager to pass a bipartisan $10 billion Covid preparedness package. And there was talk of clearing a House-passed bill to ban Russian oil imports and strip Vladimir Putin’s nation of its preferred trading status.

But here we are on Wednesday morning, and as of now, it’s entirely possible that all that Schumer will get done this week is confirming Jackson’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

To be sure, confirming a Supreme Court justice in a 50-50 Senate is a major accomplishment. But the Senate may leave lot on the cutting room floor as senators head home for the Easter recess.

That means the Covid prep bill – which the White House has been demanding for months – gets shelved once again. It’s the second time in recent weeks this has happened to Democratic congressional leaders, although in this case it was a dispute over immigration and border security that forced the delay, not an internal party revolt. This is a defeat for the White House and Hill Democratic leadership, which has been shouting that it needs this money.

In exchange for speeding up consideration of the Covid bill, Senate Republicans are demanding a vote on an amendment extending use of Title 42, the public health policy provision the Biden and Trump administrations used to stem the flow of hundreds of thousands of migrants at the southern border during the pandemic. Under pressure from pro-immigration groups, Biden has ordered an end to use of the policy by May 23, potentially allowing a new wave of migrants to claim asylum in the United States.

This is incredibly tricky politics for Democrats. As we laid out in our Midday edition Tuesday, endangered 2022 Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev.), Mark Kelly (Ariz.), Maggie Hassan (N.H.) and Raphael Warnock (Ga.), have joined with their moderate colleagues Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.) in forcefully opposing the administration’s reversal on this issue. If a Title 42 amendment came to the floor during debate on the Covid package this week, there’s a real chance Democratic leaders would be unable to defeat it.

So in sum, Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell need to reach a deal amendments before the Covid package can be considered. And Democrats need to come to an internal consensus on how to respond to ongoing immigraton problems at the U.S.-Mexico border. Biden has been unable to do so since the start of his presidency, opening him to criticism from pro and anti-immigration forces in both parties. Schumer said Tuesday that he didn’t believe the Covid bill should be held “hostage” to other policy issues like Title 42.

Which raises an obvious question: If Congress can’t clear these two bills now, when there’s clearly strong bipartisan support in both chambers, will it ever be able to do so?

The Russia PNTR package seems relatively easy to solve, and there’s still an outside chance it gets done this week. The House passed this same legislation by a 424-8 margin.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi told us Tuesday that the $10 billion Congress planned to pass this month wasn’t enough and party leaders would need to craft a new package before the summer.

Of course, when Congress gets back in a few weeks, it will have other priorities on tap as well. Schumer has said he wants to revive a reconciliation package. The Hill will also need to move to a formal conference negotiation process on the chips bill.

Biden administration officials are warning that the federal agencies will be unable to keep responding to the pandemic without a fresh infusion of money. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki lashed out at Republicans after all 50 GOP senators – joined by Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) – voted against cloture Tuesday on a legislative vehicle for the Covid package. This “test vote” was seen as a measure of whether the Covid proposal could win Senate backing. Here’s Psaki:

Of course, Congress could just pick up the Covid proposal it’s already got in hand when it returns from the Easter recess. But the two sides will still have to resolve the immigration issue, which isn’t going away.

“It’s pretty solid,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said. “The bill is paid for … So I don’t think it’s going away. It’s fine.”

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