Senate hands Biden a win with passage of massive COVID relief bill

Early Saturday morning, after a night of frenzied negotiations, the U.S. Senate passed a massive COVID relief bill that will help out embattled states and Americans dealing with the economic devastation caused by the coronavirus pandemic that began during Donald Trump's last year in office.

Prior to the vote Politico reported, "As of Saturday morning, the Senate had been in session for more than 24 hours straight, with the vote-a-rama taking up most of the time and with several more hours to go. Senate Democrats largely stuck together throughout the night and staved off GOP efforts to drastically change the bill. While some Democrats defected on a handful of GOP amendments, those amendments required 60 votes to pass. Democrats also sidestepped a quagmire on undocumented immigrants that infuriated liberals last month after some moderates supported a proposal barring those immigrants from receiving checks. All 50 Democrats banded together to reject an amendment from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to bar relief payments from going to undocumented immigrants"

The final vote was 50-49 along party lines with no need for Vice President Kamala Harris to cast a tie-breaking vote.

President Joe Biden is expected to sign the bill this coming week.

More details to come....