GOP lawmaker plans to try to force recorded vote on $2 trillion coronavirus bill
March 27, 2020 / By Kasie Hunt and Alex Moe
WASHINGTON — Shortly before the House vote Friday on the massive relief package in response to the coronavirus outbreak, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., said he planned to force a recorded vote on the legislation, arguing that House members should have to go on the record like the Senate did.
In a series of follow-up tweets, Massie said many people, including manufacturing workers, health care professionals, pilots, grocery clerks, cooks, delivery drivers and others, still have to go to work in the midst of the outbreak.
“Is it too much to ask that the House do its job, just like the Senate did?” he tweeted, referring to the Senate’s roll-call vote on the legislation Wednesday night.
Massie said he was not delaying the bill, which he railed against. “This stimulus should go straight to the people rather than being funneled through banks and corporations like this bill is doing,” he wrote.
Democratic and Republican leaders suspected Massie would force a recorded vote; they advised House members to come back to Washington late Thursday, because they believed the $2 trillion economic relief package would not pass by the planned Friday voice vote and could be delayed if a quorum of at least 216 members weren’t in attendance.
Members then raced to get back to Washington — in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic — to make it for the possible roll-call vote.
