Murray Votes Against Partisan, Inadequate GOP COVID-19 Bill; Urges Republicans Back to Negotiating Table

Murray: “Democrats have been at the table ready to get to work on real COVID-19 relief for months and we absolutely still are.”

Murray will continue pushing for a comprehensive COVID-19 relief package that delivers for students, workers, and families

(Washington, D.C.) – U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, released the following statement on her vote to oppose the Senate Republicans’ harmful and partisan COVID-19 bill.

“Senate Republicans have known from the start they wouldn’t be able to jam through an inadequate, partisan excuse for COVID-19 relief like the one we voted on today. Now that this exercise is over with, I hope that rather than throwing up their hands and calling it quits, Republicans will instead finally start bipartisan negotiations on policies that meet the urgency of this moment and deliver the help families so desperately need. Democrats have been at the table ready to get to work on real COVID-19 relief for months and we absolutely still are.”

Senator Murray has emphasized the need for the next coronavirus relief package to invest in helping schools educate students safely, whether remotely or in-person, fully stabilize the child care sector, make testing and contact tracing fast, free and everywhere, require an end-to-end comprehensive plan to ensure safe, effective vaccines are cost free and widely available, provide relief to jobless workers, keep workers safe and protect their civil rights, address the disproportionate impact of the virus on Black, Latinx, and Tribal communities, and provide relief for state, local, and Tribal governments.

The Senate GOP bill failed to adequately address any of these issues, and in addition, included harmful provisions that would have given corporations a "get out jail free” card if their employees get sick on the job, taken money away from cash-strapped public schools and given it private schools, advanced Secretary DeVos’ disastrous school privatization agenda, and gutted hard-fought civil rights protections for workers.  

Cloture on the bill failed to meet the 60-vote threshold with a final vote of 52-47.

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