Im old-school, Durbin said. Amendments on the floor, its part of the assignment. And now we have people scared to death of all amendments on both sides. And I think that really is taking away from this place.
Im old-school, Durbin said. Amendments on the floor, its part of the assignment. And now we have people scared to death of all amendments on both sides. And I think that really is taking away from this place.Still, both he and Murray said the decision was ultimately up to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who has called the GOPs push extraneous and supports the Biden administrations decision to end the deportation policy known as Title 42. Democrats are unsure whether they could defeat an amendment on the issue that requires 60 votes to pass, but Murray said she supported holding a vote to unstick the Senate floor: All I know is, we need to get Covid funding done.
Bidens decision to end the policy is splitting the Democratic caucus. Several vulnerable incumbents have called for Biden to reverse course on rolling back the deportation limits, pushing instead for bipartisan legislation from Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.) that requires the administration to have a plan in place to address an anticipated surge in border crossings. While the administration last month sought to appease those concerns by releasing a memo on its plan, some Democratic senators saw that as insufficient.
Democratic supporters of easing the Covid-related migration constraint dont want to see the Senate take up a GOP amendment thats likely to pass, given theinterest from their own partys senators up for re-election as well as those from purple states. In a 50-50 Senate, Democrats could only lose 9 of their members to vote against any Title 42 amendment at a 60-vote threshold.
Thats not my decision, its the leaders decision. But Title 42 has nothing to do with coronavirus [aid], and from my perspective, if Republicans want to play with the nations health security, they should pay a price for it, said Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), who warned that Democrats should not fall for what he called Republicans political trap.
He also predicted Democrats would likely lose an immigration vote on the Senate floor.
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has made clear that Senate Republicans will insist on the amendment vote before agreeing to move forward on a Covid aid package, even as the courts hold up the Biden administrations decision ahead of its scheduled May 23 reversal of the policy. But Democratic aides cautioned it was unclear whether granting the GOP a vote would be enough to convince 10 Republicans to get on board with the bigger Covid aid package.
Still, for some Democratic senators, the vote on border policy is inevitable.
Whether we should or not, I think were going to, said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) Im a big believer that there ought to be amendment votes on bills. So whether or not it would be my preferred amendment … I think theyre going to say hey, if you want to have a Covid bill, we want to have a vote on this … Thats the way Ive been seeing it for a while.
