The House of Representatives on Thursday voted to approve the creation of a committee chaired by Democratic Rep. James Clyburn to oversee the federal government’s coronavirus response, as Republicans ripped the idea of a committee as politically-motivated and argued Democrats will use it as a forum to attack President Trump.
The formation of the committee was approved 212-182 after a nearly 90-minute vote.
The House took extraordinary steps to conduct the roll call vote in person: Members, grouped into nine clusters of between 40 and 50 people, were told to report to the House chamber at designated times and enter and exit through specific doors so not all members were in the chamber at once.
To limit exposure amid the coronavirus crisis, members were directed to stay in their offices until their turn to vote and were instructed to retreat to their offices after voting and not linger. Another vote — on passing a nearly half-trillion-dollar coronavirus relief package — was set for Thursday afternoon.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., announced that she would create the committee led by Clyburn, D-S.C., earlier this month. Clyburn led a similar panel, Pelosi said Thursday, for oversight of the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina in 2006.
Pelosi, D-Calif., said the committee was designed to address the “here and now,” specifically concerning the allocation of the historic amount of federal funds directed to the economic recovery. She compared the panel to the committee chaired by then-Sen. Harry Truman in 1941 to investigate waste, fraud and abuse in defense spending in the early days of World War II. – READ MORE
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