Maryland Democrats prepare for Senate showdown over medical leave, child care and other ‘Build Back Better’ priorities

Mayor Brandon Scott and fellow Maryland Democrats allowed themselves, if only briefly, to celebrate the U.S. House’s passage of a social safety net and climate change mitigation bill they extolled as “historic” and “transformative.”

Their joy — and relief — last month at having cleared one obstacle to final approval of President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” package was tempered by the knowledge that a Senate showdown looms over the package’s ultimate shape. The lawmakers are akin to a distance runner resisting an impulse to savor a lead with an uphill climb still to go.

“It’s going to be transformative no matter what,” said Democratic Rep. Kweisi Mfume of Baltimore. “But we’d like for it to have its greatest impact, which means keeping all of it or most of it intact the way it is now. I don’t know that there is going to be another opportunity like this in the near future.”

The roughly $2 trillion bill, the most sweeping piece of Biden’s legislative agenda, aims to reduce child care and prescription drug costs, provide additional affordable housing, combat climate change, fund universal prekindergarten, and reduce premiums under the Affordable Care Act.

Maryland’s seven Democratic House members voted for the legislation, highlighting such provisions as the extension of a child tax credit, four weeks of paid family and medical leave, and new funding for community-based anti-violence initiatives that they believe could help Baltimore.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says he wants to get the bill passed before Christmas if possible. The measure could come to the floor as early as this week.

Rep. Andy Harris, the state delegation’s only Republican, joined the other House GOP members in opposing the bill. His staff did not return messages seeking comment. Harris had said on Twitter that the measure “will only add to inflation that’s already a huge problem.”

The bill passed the House 220-213 but faces an uncertain future as Senate Democrats negotiate its scope and Republicans object to many of its priorities and to the size of corporate tax hikes needed to pay for it.

Democrats need a minimum of 50 votes in the Senate to pass the legislation. If it attracts no Republican support, the outcome could be decided by the votes of Senate Democrats Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who have raised concerns about the bill’s cost and some of its provisions.

Gov. Larry Hogan is among the many prominent Republicans opposing the legislation. Hogan issued a statement following the House vote calling the measure “a reckless grab bag of massive tax hikes, Democratic Party wish list items, and handouts to special interests.” He said the bill was “another example of Washington catering to the extremes at the expense of the overwhelming majority of the American people.”

Scott is among many Democrats who view the bill as critical to working families emerging from the pandemic.

“The time is now because you don’t know what you’re going to get four years from now, or in the future,” said Natasha Mehu, the mayor’s government relations director. “It’s so expansive that it’s hard to find a provision we would not want to move forward.”

The bill’s potential effects on Maryland are difficult to quantify in dollars. While the recently signed, $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill is largely about highway, port, bridge and broadband projects, Build Back Better includes assistance going directly to families, or grants whose amounts would be based on need.

Here is a look at some of the provisions that Maryland lawmakers say are priorities:

Funding for community violence prevention: Two multiyear programs would make $5 billion available nationally to help fund such strategies as outreach, conflict mediation and counseling, as well as technical assistance for law enforcement. “To me, it’s one of the highest priorities,” said U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin of curbing violent Baltimore crime. “You have a large number of gangs that operate in a relatively small area. When they’re taken down, you have to backfill with community support” — a reference to the sorts of violence prevention programs the bill would fund.

Reducing prescription drug costs, including allowing Medicare to negotiate with drug companies: Mfume said his Baltimore-area constituents are “really concerned about — and consider it almost nonnegotiable, as I do — that this idea of lowering prescription drug prices has to remain in the bill. The provision that gives government the ability to go out on the open market and negotiate prices has to stay.”

Federal subsidies to limit child care costs: Families who meet income limits would have their child care costs capped at 7% of their income. Parents would need to be working, training for a job, or seeking employment, unless they were coping with major health issues.

Family and medical leave: The House bill contains four weeks of paid family and medical leave for workers. “I think we’ve seen, particularly through the pandemic, the struggle you have when you have medical emergencies and you have kids and need that time from work to address those needs,” said Mehu. Manchin successfully argued to remove paid leave from a previous Senate version of the bill and objected after the House added the provision back into their version.

Allowing Marylanders to deduct more state and local taxes from their federal returns: The 2017 Republican tax cut bill capped the total at $10,000, which meant that many residents of Maryland — a high tax state — could no longer deduct all the income, property or other taxes they pay to the state, county or city governments.