After repeatedly blocking requests to vote on increasing direct stimulus payments from $600 to $2,000 Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell introduced his own version of the bill that included the larger checks but also two other major priorities for President Trump.
The legislation would also annul Section 230 and create a committee on the Election Assistance Commission with the sole purpose of studying election integrity.
McConnell brought the three issues to the floor on Tuesday.
“During this process, the president highlighted three additional issues of national significance he would like to see Congress tackle together,” McConnell said.
He then gave a rundown of the three issues.
“Those are the three important subjects the president has linked together,” McConnell continued. “This week, the Senate will begin a process to bring these three priorities into focus.”
McConnell’s comments were not a promise that any of these issues would receive a vote or that he would fight for them at all. It’s unlikely that the Senator’s bill will gain the support of the 60 other senators that is needed to break a filibuster. Republicans already in favor of the $2,000 checks will most likely support the bill, but because of the two other issues brought forth by McConnell, it’s expected that most Democrats will not vote.
Georgia Senator David Perdue is one of the Republicans in favor of the $2,000 checks and said that he will support McConnell’s bill.
“The Democrats themselves held this up for months and so here in the last minute, they’re complaining about the normal operation of the Senate,” Perdue said on “Fox & Friends”. “I’m an outsider of this process but I can tell you these things that Mitch McConnell is trying to do are in line with what the President has said. I support what the President is trying to do relative to Section 230, the repeal of that and also the $2,000 stimulus checks. We’re in full support of that.”
So far, no action has been to push foward with McConnell’s bill.
