CARES Bill passes via "unanimous consent" vote? Really?

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act also known as the CARES Act, was signed into law by President Trump on March 26, 2020. The largest spending bill (by far) in the history of the world was intended to address the economic fallout of the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic in the United States. At no other time, or place, in the history of civilization, has there been a spending bill of such magnitude. Whether you agree, or disagree, with the details of the bill, it was clear some form of government intervention was needed in order to avoid a complete short- and long-term collapse of our economy that might go on for years and years. So, one would think that given the gravity and importance of the bill, that we would actually follow the Constitution to get it passed. Or at least we would acknowledge openly that for emergency reasons only, we were going to ignore the Constitution this one time.

But what really takes the cake on the issue of passing the bill was two events that led up to the passage and the two widely different responses. And why the Democrats always seem to get the better of the Republicans on major issues.

Everyone remembers the weekend before when Nancy Pelosi swept into DC to virtually overturn the work that had been agreed upon in the Senate. Pelosi wanted to put her stamp of spending ideas unrelated to COVID on the bill and was willing to stop the process for several days all the while everyone involved was declaring how critically important it was to provide relief to the economy. She held up the Senate approval for 4 days. And while she didn’t get everything she wanted; she did accomplish a lot in adding Christmas ornaments to the tree of spending. The ultimate backlash against Pelosi for interfering for 4 days was fairly minimal and most people have already forgotten and moved on. Keep in mind, that while she was causing the delay, she had not ordered Congress back in town to prepare for their ultimate vote that she knew had to come right behind the Senate vote. So finally, the Senate conducts a roll call vote and the bill passes 96 to 0. Politically speaking, the republicans gave Pelosi a “pass” on her interference and she, nor the Democrats, really didn’t suffer any political damage.

Now move on to the House. Once the bill moved to the House, and since Pelosi had “blessed” it, it was assumed that somehow the House would immediately pass the bill using a “unanimous consent” style vote and that would then move the bill to the President. To be clear, a vote by unanimous consent is not consistent with the Constitution. Low and behold, one loan Republican House member from Kentucky questioned the voting process. Tom Massie wanted a roll call vote which would have necessitated Congress to travel into the capital to make the vote. He asked this on Wednesday March 25 and was immediately vilified by both parties for being anti-American and so on. Trump even got involved in the name calling. Massies’ political career is probably over. Ultimately, he was bullied into agreement and the House passed the bill by “unanimous consent” (unanimous yay and nay voting as a body). The result was that this Congress passed the largest spending bill in the history of civilization without adhering to the Constitution and the one person who questioned it (for a few hours) suffered irreparable political damage while Pelosi held it up for 4 days and got a pass. Republicans piled on Republicans with the same energy as Democrats who had to be laughing the whole time. Result: Political victory to Democrats.

Now I’m not saying the vote should have been taken any differently because the circumstances frankly made it so. But Pelosi had a lot to do with the circumstances (her delays and her lack of calling congress in). And in the end, the Republicans got out maneuvered by the crafty democrats.

Shouldn’t we as a country at least want the Constitution to be followed. And when its not, shouldn’t we at least acknowledge that widely? I think it comes down to the politicians covering their own butts. Shouldn’t we at least call all of Congress out for not handling the vote in accordance with the Constitution? Since there are no recorded votes on the CARES bill, no one can take the blame for a negative result. And conversely, if everything goes great, Congress can take all the credit for a positive result.

You would think that at least this bending of the rules should be mentioned by the media. “LARGEST BILL IN THE HISTORY OF RECORDED CIVILIZATION PASSES WITHOUT FOLLOWING CONSTITUTION”. It’s not that I disagree with what happened, it’s that it deserves more than a flippant toss into the trash can of thought. After all, what happens on the next important vote?