WASHINGTON — Sen. Susan Collins, one of a handful of GOP senators working to garner support in her party for a bill to codify gay marriage, said the Democrats’ surprise embrace of a tax and climate change bill made her job much harder.
“I just think the timing could not have been worse and it came totally out of the blue,” the Maine senator told HuffPost Thursday about Senate Democrats’ unveiling of their bill to raise taxes on some companies, boost IRS enforcement and spend the resulting money to fund anti-climate change efforts.
The news that West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) had arrived at an agreement broke like a thunderclap over official Washington early Wednesday night. The bill still faces hurdles, including ensuring all Senate Democrats are on board and will be available to vote on it when it comes to the floor. But if Democrats pull it off, it could be a big political victory for the party and the White House.
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Still, Collins warned that the manner in which that victory was secured, where it appeared Democrats kept Manchin and Schumer’s negotiations under wraps until a separate bipartisan computer chip production incentive bill was passed by the Senate, hurt the effort to gather support among Republicans to bring the gay marriage bill to the floor.
“After we just had worked together successfully on gun safety legislation, on the CHIPs bill, it was a very unfortunate move that destroys the many bipartisan efforts that are under way,” she said.
The bill to codify gay marriage, which would also formally repeal a 1996 law overturned by the U.S Supreme Court in the Obergefell decision, passed the House of Representatives with the support of 47 Republicans on July 19.
“I just think the timing could not have been worse and it came totally out of the blue.”
– Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine)
While Republicans had been expected to filibuster the bill in the Senate, the support of four GOP senators — Collins, Ohio’s Rob Portman, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski and North Carolina’s Thom Tillis — raised the prospect 10 Republicans might be able to be brought along. That, along with all 50 Democratic votes, would break a filibuster and allow the bill to be passed and sent to President Joe Biden for his signature.
But with time dwindling for the Senate before they leave for the August recess and a new, concerted lobbying effort by conservative organizations, any Senate consideration looks likely to be pushed into the fall campaign season at best.
Asked if she thought the bill would have to wait now until the fall, Collins said, “I don’t know and I’m going to continue to work for support for the bill.”