Wall Street Journal: Pelosi Says House Should Remain in Session Until Coronavirus Stimulus Deal Is Reached

“We have to stay here until we have a bill,” the California Democrat told her caucus on a call, according to a senior aide.

There is no vote on coronavirus-related aid scheduled for the House’s current three-week session, and talks between Democratic leadership and the White House have been nonexistent for weeks.

Many anxious Democratic lawmakers, including incumbents defending competitive seats, have been pressuring party leaders to break the logjam, eager to pass a bill to help struggling Americans even if it gives concessions to Republicans who have called past Democratic proposals bloated.

Moderate Democrats have sent letters to their leadership, encouraging Mrs. Pelosi to resume negotiations with the White House. Mrs. Pelosi has held firm that Democrats should support an expansive package that includes money for state and local governments, schools and extends unemployment assistance and food programs.

“We’ve got to get something across the finish line now,” said Rep. Kendra Horn, an Oklahoma Democrat who represents a district President Trump won in 2016. “This back-and-forth, us-versus-them, tit-for-tat, it doesn’t help my community, it doesn’t help people in my district who need it.”

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D., Md.) said Tuesday that a deal would come “as soon as the administration wants to talk in reasonable terms” and that the House may technically remain in session while leadership attempts to negotiate, but that lawmakers could return home and campaign while on notice that they need to return to Washington if a deal comes together.

White House adviser Jared Kushner said that any deal could be a ways off.

“We do think that there is a need for another intervention,” he said on CNBC. “The hope is that we will still get to a deal. It may happen after the election because there obviously are politics involved.”

Mrs. Pelosi had told White House negotiators she would come down to $2.2 trillion on a bill and hasn’t ruled out a deal. Some Democrats have said they would be willing to discuss a smaller package, potentially moving closer to the $1.5 trillion the White House has said it could accept.

Last week, Senate Democrats blocked Senate Republicans’ whittled-down $300 billion coronavirus aid package, which included $300 in weekly federal jobless payments and aid for small businesses among other items. Even the most impatient Democratic lawmakers don’t see value in taking up the Senate bill, citing the need for more money for state and local governments, public schools and people facing food insecurity that the Senate bill left out.

“It certainly won’t be the skinny bill, and it’s not going to be the Heroes Act,” said Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D., Fla.), referring to the Senate’s bill and the House Democrats’ $3.5 trillion legislation that passed in May. “I think there’s a lot that we can work from.”

After weeks of dealing with GOP divisions, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) turned the spotlight on Mrs. Pelosi’s deliberations with her own caucus.

“I understand that she’s getting a lot of pressure internally from a number of her members who would like to see some results,” Mr. McConnell told reporters Tuesday. “We know that requires some compromise between the administration, which has the power to sign it into law, and the Democratic House.

First-term Democrats who were sworn into Congress during a government shutdown in January 2019 have no desire to spark another when the government’s funding expires on Oct. 1. But some are irked that they might be voting on a short-term spending bill known as a continuing resolution, or CR, but not another relief package before returning home.

Photo: AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin (left)/Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg (right) (Originally published Sept. 8, 2020)

“It is a middle finger to the American people to pass just the CR and not a Covid relief bill,” said first-term Rep. Max Rose (D., N.Y.), who sent a letter to congressional leaders on Monday urging them to address both issues.

Lawmakers are still discussing the duration of the spending bill, aides said. Some Democrats want to extend it into 2021, but Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R., Ala.) said Dec. 18 was a date under consideration. Mr. Hoyer said Tuesday he hoped to vote on the spending bill next week.

On Tuesday morning, the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus laid out a roughly $1.5 trillion framework that both Republicans and Democrats in the 50-member group supported. The proposal would give another round of direct checks to Americans, provide $500 billion to state and local governments and carry many aid programs, including jobless benefits, past inauguration day. Lawmakers said the proposal moves the debate past the political frenzy around the election.

The price tag is down significantly from the $3.5 trillion bill that House Democrats passed in May, known as the Heroes Act.

Leaders of the New Democrat Coalition, a group of more than 100 business-friendly House Democrats, said they didn’t want the House to adjourn for another break before voting on a coronavirus-aid package.

“Our constituents are hurting right now, and they urgently need help,” Rep. Derek Kilmer (D., Wash.), the group’s chairman, told reporters Monday evening.

Lawmakers in the group said they shared Mrs. Pelosi’s goal of a sweeping deal, but if that weren’t possible, they wanted to make sure that some key programs are extended.

At a minimum, said Rep. Scott Peters (D., Calif.), Congress should restore the federal unemployment insurance benefits that expired in late July, boost food-stamp assistance and approve a more generous increase in federal spending on Medicaid.

“It seems particularly cruel and also economically unwise to let those go to zero,” Mr. Peters, a member of the coalition, told reporters.