DeLauro Heads Back To D.C., By Car, For Covid-19 Vote

New Haven’s U.S. representative described those adjustments and answered listeners’ questions about how Congress is responding to the crisis, during an appearance Thursday on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program.

She said members of Congress have the option of voting remotely, by voice, Friday when the House of Representatives takes up the $2 trillion Covid-19 economic stimulus bill passed by the Senate.

“They have not called back everyone. It’s up to individuals” whether to show up Friday in person, said the 15-term Democratic representative. ​“I want to be there” to speak on the floor and participate directly.

Given the need for social distancing, she’s forgoing her usual Amtrak ride, one of numerous adjustments she’s making in order to remain active in her job at the national level and back home.

“I’m a hugger. Contact with people is so critically important to me. So it’s been hard,” DeLauro said. But she’s determined to help ​“flatten the curve” of the coronavirus’s spread by practicing social distancing. ​“It hasn’t stopped me from being in touch” with constituents, she reported. She has learned her way around Zoom and held teleconferenced town halls with constituents, as well as group online visits with local police and fire chiefs, mayors and first selectmen and selectwomen, school superintendents, and health care workers.

She’s hearing about the need for help with online access for students whose schools have shut down, life-saving hospital equipment, extended benefits for all unemployed workers, including those ​“gig economy” workers shut out of the compensation process.

“We owe it to our health care providers to get them what they need to do their jobs” safely, DeLauro said.

DeLauro said the stimulus bill under consideration Friday addresses many of those needs. It includes $600 a week supplemental benefits on top of regular unemployment compensation, and covers part-time, self-employed gig workers. Over $30 billion will help local schools and institutions of higher education, while student loan payments will be suspended for six months, and $100 million will help prisons contend with the virus’s spread, among other features of the legislation.

She spoke of the challenge of making sure that people actually get their hands on that help — the small-business loans, the unemployment benefits, the computer-learning tools — back home in New Haven after the $2 trillion stimulus becomes law. She vowed that she and her office will join other local institutions in helping citizens get the details they need to access the aid.

DeLauro has fought for increased assistance to the needy before the crisis as chair of the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Subcommittee. She vowed to keep pressing for increased assistance after this bill’s passage in the form of subsequent legislation.

“I commit to you, we will fight for more robust packages,” DeLauro told one listener to the program.‘“We owe it to our health care providers to get them what they need to do their jobs” safely.

Click on the video below for the full episode of WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven” with U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro.