Legislation stacks up in Senate after House approvals: Here are 6 bills awaiting action
WASHINGTON – In an evenly divided Senate, becoming a “legislative graveyard” seems to be hard to avoid, even at the insistence of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
“We are not going to be a legislative graveyard, very simply,” Schumer said in March, three months into the Democrats' Senate majority. “People are going to be forced to vote on them – ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on a whole lot of very important and serious issues.”
For years, the Senate was a place bills went to die while Republicans had the majority under Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who refused to bring Democratic-led legislation to the chamber floor for a vote.
Though Schumer brings bills to the floor, the 50/50 split along hard partisan lines prevents the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster and bring the legislation to a vote.
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The For the People Act – a sweeping bill that would protect voters' rights and increase election security – is a high-profile example of legislation that Senate Democrats were unable to pass in the six months since gaining the majority.
Schumer is undeterred. The New York senator promised to bring several more pieces of legislation to the Senate floor. Here are six of the bills awaiting action there:
The Equality Act
One of the pieces of legislation awaiting the Senate is the Equality Act, which would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation and gender identity. This bill would be the second passed by Congress to protect the LGBTQ community from discrimination.
The legislation would expand protections of federal civil rights laws to members of the LGBTQ community and protect the community from discrimination in housing, public spaces and employment benefits as an increasing number of states pass laws restricting LGBTQ rights.
The House passed the Equality Act in February on a mainly party-line vote, though three Republicans voted with all Democrats to pass the legislation. On the same day, Schumer declared his support of the legislation and announced that he would bring it to the Senate floor.
“I will use my power as majority leader to put it on the floor, and let's see where everybody stands,” Schumer said. “Let's see where everybody stands.”
2002 war resolution
The House voted to repeal the 2002 war resolution that allowed for the U.S. military’s invasion of Iraq. It's a measure the House has previously approved that has been unable to pass the Senate.
The White House and the Senate’s Democratic leaders have voiced support for the bill, and Schumer vowed to bring it to the floor this year.
“The Iraq War has been over for nearly a decade. An authorization passed in 2002 is no longer necessary in 2021,” Schumer said, emphasizing that the United States wouldn’t “abandon our relationship with Iraq and its people.”
The nearly two-decade-old resolution authorized then-President George W. Bush to use the U.S. military as “he determines to be necessary and appropriate” to defend U.S. national security against “the continuing threat posed by Iraq.”
The measure was used by the Trump administration last year as legal justification when Iranian Gen. Qassim Soleimani was killed in a U.S. drone strike. The Department of Defense called the strike a “defensive action,” accusing Soleimani of plotting attacks on Americans.
The measure passed the House 268-161, 49 Republicans voting with Democrats to repeal the war authorization.
DC Admission Act (H.R. 51)
Another House-passed piece of legislation, the Washington, D.C., Admission Act, would give the District of Columbia statehood.
The new state – something residents have been pushing for decades – would be named Washington, Douglass Commonwealth, after abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who spent the final 17 years of his life in the city.
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If passed, residents would – for the first time – get voting representatives in Congress. The new state would get two senators and one representative in the House, based on its population. Residents pay taxes and can vote in presidential elections but have no vote in Congress.
This is the second time a statehood bill has passed the House. The Republican-controlled Senate didn’t bring it to a vote during the last congressional session in 2020.
Schumer praised House Democrats' efforts on the Senate floor in April, calling statehood an “important step towards recognizing the full citizenship of more than 700,000 residents of the District of Columbia.”
“D.C. statehood is an idea whose time has come,” Schumer said.
The vote on the Washington, D.C., Admission Act fell solely on partisan lines, 216-208.
The American Dream and Promise Act and Farm Workforce Modernization Act
The American Dream and Promise Act and the Farm Workforce Modernization Act are two immigration-related bills that passed the House, both mainly on partisan lines.
The American Dream and Promise Act would allow recipients of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program the ability to live and work in the USA. The legislation passed 228-197, and nine Republicans voted in support of the bill.
The future of the DACA program is uncertain, challenged by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and officials from eight other states.
The Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which would provide a pathway to legal status for more than 1 million undocumented farmworkers, received more bipartisan support than the American Dream and Promise Act – 30 Republicans voted with Democrats – and it passed the House on a vote of 247-174.
Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021 (H.R. 8)
The Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021, otherwise known as H.R. 8, is one of two House-passed bills that would create stricter gun sales regulations as gun violence rises in the USA.
The bill would expand the requirement of background checks to more firearms sales and transfers. Federal law requires background checks only for licensed gun dealers; the measure would mandate background checks for private individuals and groups in an attempt to close the “gun show loophole.”
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It would be illegal for those not licensed as a firearm importer, manufacturer or dealer to trade or sell firearms. Though the legislation would create stricter background check laws, it wouldn’t create a federal registry to review them.
Schumer pledged to bring the background checks bill to the Senate floor despite the lack of support for any gun control from his Republican colleagues.
“For years, Republican Leader Mitch McConnell let the incredibly popular background checks legislation languish in the Senate without a vote. Now, with Democrats in the Majority, the Senate will finally have the opportunity to act on this critical issue,” Schumer said in a statement in March. “When I bring commonsense gun safety legislation to the Senate floor, my Republicans colleagues should support it.”