‘Funeral’ procession protests Lindsey Graham’s opposition to $3 trillion domestic aid bill
Supporters of the HEROES Act — an estimated $3 trillion domestic aid program that includes additional coronavirus relief — held a “funeral march” Thursday evening to protest President Donald Trump’s and Sen. Lindsey Graham’s opposition to the bill.
Graham, a Seneca Republican, is in a re-election race against opponent Jaime Harrison, a former South Carolina Democratic Party chairman.. Graham faces faces Republican opponents, Duke Buckner, Michael Lapierre and Joe Reynolds in the primary.
The bill, which spans more than 1,800 pages and is known as the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act, passed the U.S. House on May 15. It would be the largest domestic aid bill in U.S. history, dwarfing the $2 million package passed in March.
The bill provides $500 billion in direct assistance to state governments to counter the fiscal impacts of the pandemic, $375 billion to assist local governments, $20 billion to tribal governments and $20 billion to U.S. territories. It also provides up to $6,000 in direct payments to families and has a wide range of other relief funds from pay for hazard workers, the forgiveness of student loans to housing aid to assistance to the U.S. Postal Service.
Graham told CNN the bill was “dead on arrival” in the Senate because of the tremendous price tag and what he said were too many provisions outside of the pandemic.
“It’s got so much unrelated to coronavirus, it’s dead on arrival here,” he said.
The “funeral protest” began at Leevy’s Funeral Home in Columbia and proceeded to Graham’s campaign office. There, U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-Columbia, and others offered recorded messages
This protest was part of a “National Day of Mourning” that began May 20 in more than 20 states “holding President Trump and Republicans responsible for the rising death and destruction of the coronavirus,” according to a press release.
Maria Reyes, South Carolina State Coordinator for Care in Action, which represents domestic workers and is an organizer of the event, told The State the bill would save lives.
“Numbers have names and those people are people are not coming home,” she said “We can do so much more to ensure that we do not lose more lives to COVID-19.”
Organizers predicted “a minimum” of 50 cars at the protest, the release said.
This story was originally published May 28, 2020 at 4:11 PM.