Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has made it his “red line” status.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has made it his red line: Liability protection for schools, businesses, and other entities that will reopen amid the pandemic must be part of any new relief package. coronavirus.
No new relief will pass the Senate without him, he said repeatedly.
And with President Donald Trump pushing for schools to reopen, the issue is at the forefront.
A preliminary summary of the legislation McConnell helped draft with Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, is now circulating and was obtained by ABC on Friday. It will be included in a more comprehensive COVID-19 aid package than McConnell and his conference is scheduled to present next week.
The leader of the Republican Senate Party, for months, said he wants to provide protections for schools, universities, churches, government agencies and businesses, and some of the nation’s most influential interest groups, particularly among Republicans, such as the House of United States trade, are already standing directly behind the invoice.
On Thursday, McConnell, R-Kentucky, told reporters at an event in his home state that the bill will be retroactive to December 2019 and run until 2024 or until the end of the Department’s emergency coronavirus statement. Health and Human Services, whichever occurs later.
“No one should have to face an epidemic of lawsuits after the pandemic that we have already linked to the coronavirus,” said McConnell.
In the draft, currently under review at the White House, according to a Republican Party leadership aide, Republicans say: “Defendants are liable only if they made no reasonable efforts to follow applicable public health guidelines and committed an act gross negligence or willful misconduct. “
The legislation would allow federal courts to handle lawsuits related to “personal injury arising from exposure to the coronavirus allegedly caused in a school, university, charity, church, government agency or business” and “for medical liability claims arising from the provision of coronavirus care, or services provided as a result of coronavirus, by licensed health facilities and healthcare workers. ”
For frontline healthcare workers, the bill “limits liability only to gross negligence and willful misconduct,” according to the summary.
Democrats and unions have said such a proposal could protect companies that don’t protect their workers amid a myriad of state virus mitigation guidelines.
On Friday, Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y. called the bill a “shield of responsibility for CEOs.”
Although Schumer said he had not seen the proposed legislation and did not rule out liability protections, he said: “We want to put workers first. That will be our red flag as we negotiate this bill.”
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