News & Media
Coronavirus April 17 Update: House Considers Proxy and Remote Voting, Unions and Employers Seek Pension Relief, and is Hospital Funding Appears to be on Hold
House considers proxy & remote voting
The House is inching towards allowing representatives to vote remotely by allowing members who are willing and able to be in the chamber to cast proxy votes for their colleagues during the COVID-19 pandemic, Katherine Tully-McManus reports.
The plan, pitched to House Democrats by Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern on Thursday, would allow absent members to designate a proxy to cast their votes. A lawmaker would have to send a letter, electronically, to the House clerk authorizing another member to vote for him.
The House would have to convene in person to vote on a rule change, but rank-and-file representatives have urged House leaders to come up with a way to allow for remote voting so that lawmakers can continue to respond to the pandemic without having to risk exposing themselves to the virus by traveling back to Washington.
Unions, employers want pension relief included in coronavirus aid talks
A rescue plan for union pension plans nearing insolvency, exacerbated by plunging stock markets and skyrocketing unemployment, didn’t make it into last month’s massive COVID-19 aid package.
But together with high-level Democratic support, and an alliance of sorts with large employers that have their own pension problems, the issue is back on the table as the White House and lawmakers start discussions on another pandemic relief plan.
Unions and affected companies are lobbying for something akin to a 30-page draft bill circulated last month by Senate Democrats, which melds aid to single employers with aspects of competing union rescue plans pushed by House Democrats and Senate Republicans over the past year.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi included a version of multi-employer plan legislation that passed the House last year in the Democrats’ broader $2.5 trillion coronavirus aid proposal last month. She also included several employer-backed pension provisions.
Two of the employer plan measures made it into the law signed by President Donald Trump — language allowing companies to defer pension contributions and suspend benefit restrictions until next year.
But none of the multi-employer plan provisions made it into the final package, with the White House and Senate Republicans staunchly opposed to what they deemed a “bailout” for unions without putting in place structural changes aimed at preventing insolvency down the road.
The draft circulated by Senate Democrats during those talks had backing from numerous unions, as well as employers like Bechtel Corp. and trade groups representing engineering and construction-related industries. The coalition sent a letter to congressional leaders April 9 advocating for the hybrid plan with 48 signatories. An updated letter with more supporters is expected soon.
Unless the government picks up the tab for failing plans, the group argues, companies that remain on the hook for paying into the funds could go under and have no way to preserve benefits promised to millions of retirees as well as their current workforce.
Read the full story on RollCall.com.
Hospital funding on hold?
The second wave of emergency funding for hospitals provided in the last legislative response (PL 116-136) appears to be on hold after Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma suggested it would be distributed this week.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro wrote that the funding was delayed in a Thursday letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, CQ Roll Call's Lauren Clason reports. Azar told House Democrats it would take another week and a half to calculate how the $100 billion provided for hospitals and health care systems would be distributed.
The hospital industry is urging HHS to prioritize hospitals, which are bearing the brunt of COVID-19 cases, over other health care providers. CMS says they have prioritized sending funds to the areas that are the hardest hit by the pandemic.