After a weather related delay Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is just about ready to go with his jobs package. But with another storm threatening to shut down Congress yet again tomorrow, a week-long recess set to kick off this weekend, and no promise from the GOP not to filibuster the bill, Reid is threatening to keep the Senate in session through the weekend to get the bill finished.
“The issue before the Senate and the decision I have to make after speaking to the Republican leader is what we do when we come back here on Thursday,” Reid said on the floor this afternoon.
We’ll have an intervening day. I would rather not be in session tomorrow if, in fact, we have to file cloture on that package that I just talked about. I have told everyone that what I think would be the appropriate way to do is to get on that bill and to have some amendments on both sides, and I hope we can do that. We really need to finish the bill this week. I would hope that we can do that in a reasonable time. It appears from what I have been able to determine is that the storm will end sometime early tomorrow evening. The problem is the streets in the D.C. area are pretty difficult so we would have to make sure that everyone has time Thursday to get here. There are some people who live in the suburbs when they are in Washington, and so we have to make sure that they have time to get here. Anyway, we’re working on these issues. And then we have the President’s Day recess. I hope we don’t have to work into the weekend to complete that. It’s really difficult to put all this stuff over.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says he can’t commit until his caucus has been briefed on what’s in the bill.
“The dilemma we currently have on the proposal that the Majority Leader is referring to is that I believe it is the case that not all members of the finance committee are yet fully aware of what the package may look like, and we also don’t have an entire conference that understands it yet, and if were talking about a roughly $80 billion package, no matter how it may be labeled, whether it’s another stimulus, whether it’s the jobs bill, whether it’s a combination of both, I would say to my friend that we need to be able to feel — my members need to be able to feel like they understand what they are being called upon to support,” McConnell said.
Reid says he expects all members will see the bill soon, and will have a chance to offer amendments. But if the Republicans create procedural deadlock, they might be here through the weekend. “I was told an hour ago that the document is completed,” Reid said. “I hope that’s the case. I do say to everyone in the Senate at this time that we want to work through this in an orderly way, and I want to make sure that both the Republican conference and the Democratic conference have a chance to see the bill.”
