On Monday, GOP Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina announced that he tested positive for Covid-19 and was experiencing mild symptoms, even after being vaccinated. In the same announcement, he credited the Covid-19 vaccine for keeping his symptoms mild. In his statement he said that if he hadn’t been vaccinated, “My symptoms would be far worse.” Senator Graham is now quarantining for the next 10 days.
Graham is now the first Senator to announce a breakthrough case of Covid-19. In addition to that, he is also the first Senator to announce illness from the virus this year. However, he is not the first member of Congress to contract the disease as of late. In fact, he is the third member of Congress to make this announcement since mid-July. The other two were both GOP Representatives, Vern Buchanan of Florida and Clay Higgins of Louisiana. Buchanan was confirmed as being vaccinated, but Higgins’ vaccination status is unknown.
Graham testing positive comes at a time when masks are starting to make a reappearance throughout the Capitol. As of last week, there was a revival of the mask mandate within the House, put into place by Attending Physician for the Capitol Brian Monahan. While that mandate was not imposed on the Senate, there was still a strong recommendation from Monahan to Senators to wear masks, regardless of their vaccination status. This guidance has definitely seen a split within the Republican party. Last week a group of GOP Representatives refused to wear masks and even march to the Senate, where they sat and listened to GOP Senator Mike Lee call the House rules ridiculous. On the other hand, there have been Republicans who have been adhering to the new guidance. One example of this is Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who decided to put her mask back on after the mayor of Washington D.C. reimposed a mask mandate. She said that she may not like wearing a mask, but she is doing it out of respect for others. It is important to note that those in the Capitol are not held to the mandates put into place by the city of DC.
With Senator Graham being one of the Republicans who voted to move forward to the debate phase for the Bipartisan infrastructure bill, some may wonder how this could affect the proceedings. Well, simply put, it means that the number of supporters for the bill is one fewer. With the vote for the bill expected to happen either this week or next, Graham will not be able to take part in the event.
This fact has the potential to be troubling. With Graham out of the proceedings, there are now 16 Republicans who voted to proceed to debate. Keeping that in mind, if the vote were to happen, and the same Republicans voted yes to pass the bill, it would mean that there would be 66 votes for yes. That is just six more than what is required to pass the bill.
With just room for 6 Senators to drop their support for the bill, it could create stress as we move closer to the final vote. Now, that being said, there is the possibility for more Republicans to jump on board, so there is no guarantee that Graham’s absence will be the end of this bill. However, it is something that will linger in the backs of minds as the vote gets closer.
As far as the timeline for the vote is concerned, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said that he would like to have the vote as soon as this week. He also said that he would like to pass the 3.5 trillion-dollar budget resolution Democrats are working on before the Senate leaves for recess next week. This resolution is being created to include what the Biden administration is calling human infrastructure. This human infrastructure plan includes things like funding for better education, childcare, paid leave, health insurance, as well as for projects to lessen the effects of climate change. The one thing to point out is that even if these bills pass before the Senate goes on recess, they will not be heading to the President’s desk for quite some time yet. The reason for this is that they would still have to pass the House, which is on recess until September 20. Once they come back they will then have to look over and debate the bills, before eventually passing them.
There is still a long way to go before this infrastructure package is complete and passed. To keep up with all of the details and updates, give us a follow on Twitter, and stay tuned for more updates here as well.
