Senate returns to Washington despite city’s coronavirus spike and Congress’ stalemate

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is hauling senators back to Washington this week even as the city reports record numbers of new coronavirus cases and the two parties are mired in a stalemate over the next bill to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. “The fact that said it’s a nonstarter on the liability protection, I don’t think that’s probably a good way to throw the gauntlet out there to challenge us to do something on state and local governments.” With congressional leaders far apart and no serious negotiations underway, a new bill is likely weeks away. Acknowledging that testing nationwide is still “continuing to scale up,” they said that Congress would prefer to “keep directing resources to the front-line facilities where they can do the most good the most quickly.” Pelosi is not bringing the House back until May 11 at the earliest, based on the attending physician’s advice. On tap for the Senate are votes to confirm the inspector general of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other Trump nominees whom McConnell’s office says are “mission-critical COVID-19” or national security nominees. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer said that allowing business owners to call workers back without adequately protecting them “makes no sense.” Tort law already protects companies from frivolous lawsuits and Congress should leave it to judges and juries to decide if companies put employees and customers at risk, said Rep. Ted Lieu.