Collins: Anti-inflation bill may have doomed bipartisan efforts on same-sex marriage

WASHINGTON — Sen. Susan Collins, one of the few GOP senators working to gain her party’s support for a bill to codify same-sex marriage, said the surprise passage by Democrats of a tax and climate change bill had made his job much more difficult.

“I just think the timing couldn’t have been worse and it came totally out of the blue,” the Maine senator told HuffPost on Thursday of the Senate Democrats’ unveiling of their bill. aimed at raising taxes on certain businesses, strengthening IRS enforcement and spending the resulting money. to finance efforts to combat climate change.

News that West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (NY) had reached an agreement broke like a thunderclap on official Washington early Wednesday night. The bill still faces hurdles, including ensuring that all Senate Democrats are on board and will be available to vote on it when it is introduced. But if the Democrats are successful, it could be a big political victory for the party and the White House.

Still, Collins warned that the way that victory was achieved, where it emerged Democrats kept Manchin and Schumer’s negotiations secret until a separate bipartisan bill incentivizing computer chip production to be passed by the Senate, hurt the effort to muster Republican support to bring the same-sex marriage bill to the ground.

“After working together successfully on gun safety legislation, on the CHIPs bill, this was a very unfortunate decision that destroys the many bipartisan efforts that are underway,” she said.

The bill to codify same-sex marriage, which would also formally repeal a 1996 law struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Obergefell decision, passed the House of Representatives with the support of 47 Republicans on July 19. .

While Republicans were expected to filibuster the bill in the Senate, support from four GOP senators — Collins, Rob Portman of Ohio, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina — raised the prospect that 10 Republicans could be brought in. That, along with the 50 Democratic votes, would break up a filibuster and allow the bill to pass and be sent to President Joe Biden for his signature.

But with time running out for the Senate before it leaves for the August recess and a new concerted lobbying effort from conservative organizations, any Senate consideration looks likely to be pushed back into the fall campaign season at best.

Asked if she thinks the bill should wait now until the fall, Collins replied, “I don’t know and I’ll keep working to support the bill.”