Schumer rolls the dice on major China bill

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is preparing to roll the dice on one of his top legislative priorities: combating China’s competitiveness.

Schumer has teed up a key vote on the legislation for Thursday amid mixed signals from Republicans on whether they will torpedo the bill, which would mark the first successful filibuster of the 117th Congress.

Efforts to counter China typically garner widespread support in Congress, as evidenced by the more than 80 senators who voted to take up the legislation, spearheaded by Schumer and Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.). But Republicans are all over the map as Democrats try to get the bill passed.

Those divisions have injected a heavy dose of drama into Thursday’s vote.

Sen. John Thune (S.D.), the chief GOP Senate vote counter, has see-sawed on his level of optimism that the bill will ultimately pass — predicting a filibuster, to likely passage and then back again.

“I’m thinking it’s not going to get done. … There’s a lot of angst about amendments,” Thune said. “There’s a way to go yet.”

Democrats will need 10 Republican votes to get the bill over multiple procedural hurdles. Even if Schumer is able to lock down that level of support from across the aisle, Republicans could still delay a final vote on the bill for days just by using the Senate’s own rulebook.

The legislation builds off a Schumer-Young proposal to provide $120 billion for programs at the National Science Foundation, Commerce Department, Energy Department and NASA. It also would create a new directorate of technology and innovation at the National Science Foundation.

In addition to those core elements, the legislation would provide $52 billion for semiconductor provisions, fold in a separate China-specific bill approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in a 21-1 vote and include provisions to limit U.S. reliance on Chinese companies and technology.

The behind-the-scenes drama comes as the bill appeared to be moving toward passage until a closed-door GOP lunch, where Sen. Mike Crapo (Idaho) railed against how the bill has taken shape and urged his colleagues to block the measure until he gets a vote on an amendment to extend trade preferences and tariff relief.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), an adviser to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), predicted that Republicans would stick together to try to force additional amendment votes.

“There have been some amendments, but [Democrats are] also handpicking which ones they want to allow and refusing others that are perhaps less convenient,” Cornyn said after the party lunch.

The situation has been fast-moving, with GOP senators who missed the lunch asking reporters what they were hearing about the bill and if they thought it could pass on Thursday.

The future of the bill is now in limbo, with Republicans split over whether they think the divisions will ultimately sink the legislation. 

Even as Thune predicted the measure would hit a wall, another GOP senator predicted that it would pass on Thursday with the support of a sizable number of Republicans.

“We’ve had the same discussion every time,” the senator said about the lunch discussion.

That leaves Schumer heading into Thursday’s vote uncertain about whether he’ll be able to get the GOP support needed to pass the bill and move quickly to legislation on creating a commission to probe the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, which he also wants to bring to the floor this week.

Complicating that timetable is the fact that the Senate is heading into a one-week Memorial Day recess, and senators typically leave town on Thursday afternoons.

Democrats have been warned that the Senate could go into a rare Friday work session, but even that puts a finite amount of time for Schumer and Republicans to work out a potential deal.

“The question is: How long does he want to keep people here?” Thune said before adding — in a hat tip to the fluidity — that “something could always change.”

Schumer has pointed to the fate of the bill as a sign on whether the Senate can still strike sweeping bipartisan deals after years of deeply partisan fights. The vote also comes as Democrats are under growing pressure to blow up the Senate’s rules on passing legislation in order to push through their base’s long wish list, potentially making the legislation one of the chamber’s final big bipartisan moments.

“It is really important legislation. I think it is one of the most important things this chamber has done in a long time,” Schumer said, making his pitch for the bill from the Senate floor.

“I heard it from both sides of the aisle, let’s try to do regular order. Let’s get on the floor and do amendments the way we used to. Well, we’re doing just that,” he added.

The potential blowup comes as Republicans have been warning for days that they wanted more amendment votes, with McConnell toeing up to the line on Monday of threatening a filibuster.

But Republicans are also working behind the scenes to try to save the bill. The Senate held additional votes on Wednesday night, and GOP lawmakers say that the red flags from other members of their caucus could change before it comes up for a key vote on Thursday.

“There’s just a lot of dissatisfaction in not being allowed to vote on the substantive amendments. I think we can work that out, but it’s going to require quite a number of votes,” said Sen. Roger Wicker (Miss.), the top Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee.

Young added that Republicans were still “actively processing amendments.”

“This isn’t a static situation,” he said. “The vote is not right now, right?”