Coronavirus

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, everywhere you look, there are signs the country needs emergency Federal relief before the end of the year. Cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are rising. COVID restrictions are snapping back into place in cities and States around the country. Economists are warning of a double-dip recession if Congress fails to pass another round of fiscal stimulus.

The situation is really quite simple. There are flaring needs in the country, and we need to work across party lines to pass legislation to meet those needs. Let me say it again. We need both parties to sit down and compromise on legislation to help the American people. That is the only way to get legislation passed. But observers of this process seem to have lost track of this simple truth. The Republican leader seems to have forgotten about it entirely.

Amazingly, it has been over 8 months since Congress came together to pass the CARES Act, and the leader's position has not budged. The majority leader continues to insist that the Senate accept one of his partisan Republican proposals, each one of which has been sorely inadequate and each of which has contained poison pills designed to ensure the bill's failure.

The most conspicuous of these poison pills is the so-called ``red line'' the majority leader has tried to draw on the issue of corporate immunity. Contrary to the majority leader's dire predictions, there has been no flood of COVID lawsuits--in fact, quite the opposite. Almost a year into this pandemic, with nearly 15 million Americans infected and 280,000 lives lost to COVID-19, there have only been 111 COVID-related lawsuits filed regarding conditions of employment, 23 suits for personal injury for exposure to the coronavirus in a public place, and 11 COVID-related medical malpractice suits.

Far from a pandemic of lawsuits, there has barely been a trickle. Yet the Republican leader continues to prevent Americans from getting the aid they so desperately need and deserve until he gets this piece of partisan, ideological legislation. Again, yesterday, while the leader was busy accusing Democrats of blocking ``bipartisan'' legislation that ``everyone agrees on''--his words--other Members of the Republican leadership were making it clear that Leader McConnell continues to insist on this particular poison pill. The Republican whip said that any relief must have corporate immunity provisions that ``satisfy Senator McConnell.''

Imagine holding emergency aid hostage--help for the unemployed, help for small businesses, help to pay the salaries of police and firefighters, help for individual Americans, funding to deliver a vaccine--in order to give corporations legal immunity. But that has been the Republican position for the past 8 months, and it is the leader's position today.

For the sake of bipartisan negotiations, Republican leadership should forsake these hard-line positions. You can't claim to want bipartisanship while actively demanding the Senate accept partisan legislation. ``Bipartisan'' does not mean Democrats must agree to whatever the Republican leader wants on whatever issue he picks. ``Bipartisan'' means both sides--both sides--sitting down and finding agreement to meet the needs of the country and make a law. That process is happening with the Gang of 8. It should continue until we get a solution

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