“The speaker and the leader should look at this not from the point of view of special privilege for members, but a protection for all the people this unique set of travelers comes in contact with just to get to work and back,” Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a member of leadership and chairman of the Rules Committee, said on Wednesday.
Blunt is the second McConnell ally to gently urge him to reconsider his decision on rapid testing. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, predicted Tuesday that “attitudes are going to change very quickly” and said McConnell is aware of where he stands.
He described members of Congress as a ”virus-spreading machine, coming in here to a coronavirus hot spot and then going home.” The Washington, D.C., area remains a coronavirus hot spot.
“The issue is not mostly about protecting members of Congress, it’s about protecting the people they might infect as they go home,” Alexander said. “It would take an army of public health workers to track and trace all the people they might have exposed. So I think that’s likely to change before too long.“
Pelosi (D-Calif.) has said she wants to bring the House back as early as next week. The Senate is expected to maintain a Monday through Thursday schedule that allows members to go to their home states for long weekends to work and see their families.
But the coronavirus is disrupting those rhythms. In the middle of an interview on Wednesday, the wife of Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) called him. After a brief discussion with her, he told a reporter: “I don’t think she’s going to let me back in the house.”
“I asked the Capitol doctor if I could get a test on Thursday to make sure I didn’t have it so I wasn’t going to go home and infect my family,” said Tester, whose son is asthmatic. “And they said unless you’ve been in contact with a known Covid carrier or unless you’re sick, you’re not going to get a test because we don’t have them.”
“We’re disease vectors,” said Sen. Angus King (I-Maine.). He said in the Democratic Caucus “there’s been talk about testing generally, but not about us.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he agrees with McConnell and Pelosi’s move.
McConnell and Pelosi rejected an offer from the Trump administration to provide Congress with 1,000 coronavirus tests along with three rapid-results machines, citing the need to prioritize rapid tests to front-line workers. Dr. Brian Monahan, Capitol Hill’s attending physician, suggested on a phone call with top GOP officials that only members and staffers who are ill would receive tests, sparking Trump’s offer.
Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) agreed with McConnell and Pelosi, saying “testing is important, there are people who need it more than we do.”
But the lack of a rapid testing regime has created an ad hoc system of governance on the Hill. Republican senators are still holding their weekly lunches, but are spaced apart and sit only three to a table in a massive hearing room.
“There’s more discipline to it,” said Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.).
Democrats have moved almost all of their party business to teleconference. But they are investigating ways to restart their group lunches, said Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who said he is “tired of telephone conferences.”
“Being here today, and your being here today, is a risk to both of us. And to our families. It’s just a fact,” he said. “It is a risky decision. And we have questioned why McConnell did this. If he wanted to bring us back for … something meaningful related to this health crisis, I accept it.”
While McConnell and Pelosi are trying to avoid any accusations of special treatment for members of Congress, there are early signs of dissent from House members as well, as the reality of coming to the Capitol amid Washington’s coronavirus peak sets in. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) broke with McConnell this week and also called for rapid result tests for Congress.
President Donald Trump, meanwhile, is criticizing Congress for declining his offer, claiming that there is “plenty of testing.”
“By Congress not wanting the special 5-minute testing apparatus, they are saying that they are not ‘essential,’” Trump tweeted this week.
Source: politico.com
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