Area Republicans knock speed of measure’s vote
Two House Republicans who represent parts of the Houston area voted against a coronavirus relief package early Saturday that would provide $1 billion each for food security programs, unemployment insurance and testing for uninsured patients.
The sweeping legislation, which would also give paid sick, family and medical leave to government and small business employees, passed the House on a 36340 vote, drawing opposition from U.S. Reps. Brian Babin, R-Woodville, and Randy Weber, R-Friendswood.
Four other Texas Republicans — Michael Cloud of Victoria, Lance Gooden of Terrell, Louie Gohmert of Tyler and Chip Roy of Austin — also voted against the measure. U.S. Rep. Pete Olson, R-Sugar Land, was one of three Texas Republicans who did not vote.
The congressmen who opposed the relief package expressed dismay over the allegedly rushed nature of the vote. Babin said he had less than 30 minutes to review the 110-page bill, and Weber said it was “not made available to members until just minutes before the vote.”
“I did not support it because I am not in favor of passing a bill to find out what is in it,” Weber said. “Having said that, if it passes the Senate and becomes law, we will do everything we can to make sure it is implemented and our district receives the full benefits afforded by law.”
The bill came together after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin struck a deal following repeated rounds of negotiations.
President Donald Trump tweeted his support for the legislation Friday evening, sparking broad support from congressional Republicans.
The Senate is expected to take up and pass the package next week. It comes on the heels of an $8.3 billion emergency funding bill signed by Trump earlier this month that included funding for vaccine research.
The four House Democrats from Houston — Sylvia Garcia, Al Green, Lizzie Fletcher and Sheila Jackson Lee — all supported the bill, along with Republican U.S. Reps. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands, Dan Crenshaw, R-Houston, and Michael McCaul, R-Austin. (McCaul’s district extends into the Houston suburbs.)
“This is really a forwardlooking bill,” Fletcher said in a news conference with Pelosi and other Democrats shortly after midnight. “We have been talking to the experts and listening to people about what is to come. The data and the scientists are telling us what we need to expect, and this bill anticipates the needs that we will have and meets them.”
Babin, whose district sprawls across west Texas and takes in the Houston Ship Channel and Johnson
Space Center, said the House had no reason to rush the vote because the Senate is not in session. He compared the situation with Pelosi’s statement on the Affordable Care Act in 2010, when she said, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.”
“Just after midnight last night, she did it again with this coronavirus supplemental bill. I voted NO,” Babin said. “My constituents elected me to read and understand the bills we vote on, and to allow them to do the same. With the U.S. Senate not back in session until Monday evening, the bill by definition cannot be signed into law until early next week.”
Still, Babin acknowledged the “the unprecedented crisis we are facing as a country” and said the package contains a number of provisions “that will help to alleviate it.”
“As Congress continues our work on legislation to address the immediate needs and long-term challenges of this pandemic, we must do so with a transparent and open process,” Babin said.