A heap of Democratic bills on guns, immigration and women’s rights are sitting in the Senate, where they need Republican support
WASHINGTON – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., lauded all the bills the Democratic-led House passed in the first few months of 2021 as “just wonderful” on Friday.
“We were very pleased this week we were able to pass legislation,” Pelosi reiterated during a news conference.
Since the new Congress started in January, the House has passed at least two dozen bills that await Senate action. A number of these provisions address major Democratic aims on immigration, elections, women’s rights and gun control.
“As a freshman, it is marvelous to be able to come to Congress and get stuff done with the Democrats,” Rep. Teresa Leger-Fernandez, D-N.M., said at the news conference.
But despite the celebratory feeling from some House Democrats, the bills face grim odds as they continue to accumulate at the Senate doors.
When Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was majority leader, he proudly called himself the Grim Reaper — the one who held the scythe in the chamber where the desires of Pelosi’s House majority go to die — for this very reason.
And though he is no longer the most powerful man in the Senate, and the GOP is in the minority, McConnell and Republicans have cast much doubt about the future of the legislation passed by the House.
Why?
Most of the legislation passed in the House was done largely along party lines and now faces a 50-50 divided Senate and a legislative hurdle called the filibuster, which requires 60 votes to overcome. This means that without at least 10 Senate Republican votes joining all 50 Democrats, legislation will not make it to President Joe Biden’s desk to become law.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., walks to his office after speaking on the Senate floor at the U.S. Capitol on Monday. (Photo: Drew Angerer, Getty Images)
Schumer said Friday on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert he prefers “Republicans join us” in passing the legislation.
“And we will give them a chance, we’ll put things on the floor. Because there are a number of my colleagues that say let’s give them a chance,” he continued. But the he said “failure is not an option” when asked about the filibuster.
Slamming McConnell’s “legislative graveyard” and calling the minority leader’s warnings “blustery threat credence” Schumer said: “We’re not going to be diverted. We’re not going to be deterred… Mitch McConnell can do all the threatening and bluster he wants. It’s not going to stop us.”
Here’s some of the legislation the House has passed that now faces action in the Senate.
Farm Workforce Modernization Act
The legislation would create a pathway for undocumented farmworkers to earn a green card.
It would also create a process to earn temporary status as Certified Agricultural Workers for people who have worked at least 180 days in agriculture over the past two years. Spouses and children could also apply for temporary status under the act.
The bill cleared the chamber in a bipartisan 247-174 vote. Thirty Republicans joined Democrats in voting for the bill. One Democrat, Rep Jared Golden of Maine, voted against the legislation.
The American Dream and Promise Act
The legislation would create a pathway to citizenship for millions of “Dreamers,” undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children.
It would grant conditional permanent resident status for 10 years and cancel removal proceedings if people meet certain requirements. Those requirements include being physically present in the U.S. on or before Jan. 1, 2021, being 18 years old or younger on the initial date of entry into the U.S. and not having been convicted of crimes such as domestic violence, sexual assault or human trafficking.
The American Dream and Promise Act passed 228-197.
Remove deadline for ERA
The House voted largely along party lines to remove the expired deadline for ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment for women: the proposal to enshrine equality for women in the U.S. Constitution.
The ERA states, in part, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”
The protections guaranteed by the ERA – providing specific protection for women as a class – are designed to end gender discrimination in broad segments, including employment, property rights and divorce.
The ERA was passed by a majority-Democrat Congress on March 22, 1972, under President Richard Nixon. However, it failed to achieve ratification after it was sent to the states.
To be added to the Constitution, the ERA needed approval by legislatures in three-fourths – or 38 of the 50 – states by March 1979. It only received approval in only 35 states by that date.
Recently, more states have approved the ERA — Nevada in 2017, Illinois in 2018 and Virginia in 2020 — reaching the minimum of 38 states required by Congress for addition to the Constitution.
Violence Against Women Act
The 26-year-old law is aimed at reducing domestic and sexual violence, and expired in 2018 after Democrats and Republicans could not agree on changes.
The latest version of the Violence Against Women Act passed the House by a vote of 244-172, with 29 Republicans joining their Democratic colleagues in voting for its passage.
However, passage remains impeded by gun control politics, and the “boyfriend loophole” prevention measure in the legislation.
Bipartisan Background Checks Act
H.R. 8 would expand background checks on individuals seeking to purchase or transfer firearms. It would not create a registry or other federal mechanisms for review.
Instead, the legislation would expand the cases in which a background check is required for the sale or transfer of a firearm, including for private individuals and groups, closing the “Gun Show Loophole.” The requirements would apply to online sales.
The Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021, passed 227-203. It received eight Republican votes, and one Democrat voted against it.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., prepares for votes in the House on the American Dream and Promise Act of 2021, a bill to help reform the immigration system. at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, March 18, 2021. Pelosi paused for a reporter's question on the killings in Atlanta this week, where six of the eight victims were of Asian descent. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) ORG XMIT: DCSA132 (Photo: J. Scott Applewhite, AP)
Enhanced Background Checks Act
The Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2021 would close the “Charleston loophole,” a gap in federal law that lets gun sales proceed without a completed background check if three businesses days have passed.
It is linked to a shooting in 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina, where a white supremacist used the loophole to obtain firearms he used to kill nine Black people during a Bible study at Mother Emanuel AME Church. The bill would extend the initial background check review period from three to 10 days.
The legislation was passed 219-210 with two Democrats opposed and two Republicans in support.
For the People Act
The House passed a sweeping anti-corruption and government ethics package that would fundamentally reshape how campaigns are run, how elections are conducted and how officeholders conduct themselves.
The bill passed 220-210, with one Democrat joining all voting Republicans to oppose the bill. Two Republicans did not vote.
George Floyd Justice in Policing Act
The policing reform bill aims to bolster police accountability and prevent problem officers from moving from one department to another by creating a national registry to track those with checkered records.
It also would end certain police practices that have been under scrutiny after the deaths of Black Americans in the last year.
It passed the House with a 220-212 vote.
‘We must act now’: House passes police reform bill named for George Floyd
Equality Act
The Equality Act would amend existing federal civil rights laws to extend protections for LGBTQ Americans in what Democratic lawmakers and advocates say would make significant progress toward legal protections for all Americans.
The sweeping legislation, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation and gender identity, is one of Biden’s top legislative priorities.
The final vote was 224-206 with three Republicans joining Democrats in voting for the bill.
Would any of the legislation get Republican support in the Senate?
Much of the legislation passed by the House has opposition from Senate Republicans. and several plan on introducing their own alternative legislation to some of the House-passed measures.
For example, Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, who is working on a GOP alternative to the VAWA in the Senate, said she hopes to show there’s a significant group of Republicans willing to work with Democrats to come up with a “good, modernized bill” that can overcome a filibuster.
Additionally, many Republicans argue adding the ERA to the Constitution is unnecessary and will rollback anti-abortion policies.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who announced in January she supported removing the deadline to ratify the amendment, has stressed she is wary of gathering the necessary Republican support, reiterating the concerns her colleagues voiced in the House.
“On the Equal Rights Amendment, I wish that I could tell you that we had more Republicans support for that at this point in time. We continue to work on that,” she said Tuesday.
On immigration, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told CNN on Sunday, he believes he is “close” to securing the necessary votes to surpass the filibuster.
“I think I’ll have some support. Whether it’s enough remains to be seen,” he said regarding the American Dream and Promise Act.
But McConnell slammed the Biden administration and House Democrats for “taking up an amnesty plan” with the current situation on the border.
Over the past several weeks, the Biden administration has seen an increase of unaccompanied migrant children to the border and has struggled to quickly move the children from short-term holding facilities to temporary facilities run by the Department of Health and Human Services.
Sen. Mike Lee opinion: H.R. 1 is not ‘For the People’
Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., who has been working on competing legislation on police reform, characterized the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act as a “partisan bill in an attempt to fix a non-partisan issue.”
House Democrats have expressed frustration with Senate Republicans, and have called for the elimination of the filibuster so they can move Democratic legislation with a simple majority vote.
House Majority Whip Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., criticized McConnell and Senate Republicans who “seem to be hellbent on using archaic Senate procedural rules to allow the minority in the Senate to block any legislation designed to protect the voting and civil rights of our country’s minority citizens as we continue our pursuit toward the fulfillment of our vision of ‘liberty and justice for all.'”
Here’s what’s coming up in the House
Despite the bills piling up in the Senate, House Democrats are not planning on slowing down anytime soon.
Democrats havereintroduced the Raise the Wage Act in the House to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour. The House passed the bill in 2019 that aimed to raise the federal minimum wage for the first time in a decade, but it was not taken up in the Republican-controlled Senate at the time.
Advocates of a $15-an-hour federal minimum wage scored a temporary victory in February when the House approved the increase in its vote to advance Biden’s COVID-19 relief bill, but the Senate parliamentarian ruled the provision had to be removed and considered as a standalone bill or as part of other legislation.
Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wisc., said progressive lawmakers had met with White House officials on Wednesday, including Chief of Staff Ron Klain, and said the officials were “very committed” to raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour and to secure the votes in the Senate to do so.
“There’s a lot of conversations about how we get those additional votes,” he said.
Pelosi also said Friday the House will soon be taking up legislation to prevent future Muslim bans, like what was implemented during the Trump administration.
Contributing: Associated Press; Nicholas Wu, Rebecca Morin, Matthew Brown, Maureen Groppe USA TODAY
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