Senate comes back into session with sharp partisan divide over next coronavirus bill

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Other outstanding issues on the negotiating table for the next coronavirus package include another round of direct cash payments to Americans; more money for overstretched hospitals and nursing homes; more funding for popular small business relief programmes; more money for states to secure their elections; infrastructure investments and broadband internet expansion; and a loosening of the criminal justice system to allow some non-violent inmates out of prisons with a high potential for being compromised by Covid-19. While Senate judiciary committee chairman Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, has not disclosed which nominees the panel will consider on Wednesday, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer on Monday panned the committee for holding a hearing for “a manifestly unqualified, totally divisive right wing judicial nominee.” That nominee is believed to be federal district judge Justin Walker, a McConnell family friend who was nominated recently for the powerful DC Circuit Court. There’s kind of a pause period right now,” director of the National Economic Council Larry Kudlow said in an interview with CNN on Sunday, adding that negotiators should revisit the topic in “a couple of weeks.” Mr Kudlow and Mr Mnuchin have been laser-focused on keeping funding coming for programmes aimed at shielding small businesses from the coronavirus’ economic fallout, such as the Treasury Department’s so-called Paycheck Protection Programme. “This will be one of the strangest sessions of the United States Senate in modern history,” Mr Schumer said, noting that senators’ offices would be mostly empty with their staffs working from home.