Biden’s relief package is on the right track.

One of the major factors that was standing in the way of President Joe Biden’s new $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package was the potential of a filibuster from the GOP side of the Senate. In order to defend the bill from the possibility of a filibuster interruption, Democrats would need to enact budget reconciliation, a process that would allow a bill to pass with a party-line vote. This was what was voted on during this morning’s “vote-a-rama” in the Senate.

The Senate voted on enacting budget reconciliation on Biden’s relief package, and the vote ended up in a perfect 50-50 split down party lines. It fell to Vice President Kamala Harris to make the tiebreaker, which ended the vote with 51-50 in favor. With budget reconciliation enacted, Democratic senators will be able to hold their party-line vote in either February or March, once the impeachment trial of Donald Trump has concluded.

Aside from the budget reconciliation vote, the “vote-a-rama” process included numerous potential amendments to the relief plan from both sides of the political spectrum. A bipartisan group of senators headed by Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin and Republican Sen. Susan Collins proposed an amendment on the third stimulus check that would prevent “upper income taxpayers” from receiving one. This amendment was quickly passed with a vote of 99-1, though it is still only a proposal and is not currently binding.

Additionally, Republican Sen. Joni Ernst proposed an amendment against the long-desired minimum wage hike to $15 included in the relief plan, citing that immediately raising the minimum wage would cause some economic friction. Sen. Bernie Sanders chimed in, clarifying that the minimum wage increase would not occur all at once, but would gradually be enacted over several years. With that clarification, Ernst’s amendment was unanimously adopted.