Politics

COVID Relief Wouldn’t Have Passed Without Georgia’s Dem Victories, Ossoff Says

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Sen. Jon Ossoff said Thursday that the coronavirus relief package wouldn’t have passed without Democratic victories in the Georgia Senate races.

“As Senator Warnock said yesterday, ‘thank God for Georgia.’ We would not have passed this legislation had we not won these two runoff victories on January 5th,” the Georgia Democrat said on CNN’s “New Day.”

Ossoff listed provisions of the package, including “the thousands of dollars of economic relief that working families are about to receive” and “the hundreds of billions of dollars for the public health effort and to reopen our schools.” Ossoff said passing those provisions “would not have been possible had folks not turned out in record numbers in Georgia and early January.”

WATCH:

The House passed the American Rescue Plan Wednesday in a 220-211 vote. No Republicans voted for the bill and Democratic Maine Rep. Jared Golden was the only Democrat to vote against the $1.9 trillion package. President Joe Biden signed the package into law Thursday, Reuters reported.

The Senate voted 50-49 on Saturday to pass Biden’s relief package.

Ossoff and Democratic Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock won the state’s Senate runoff races in January against former Republican Georgia Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler. Republicans had to hold onto at least one of the seats to keep a narrow majority in the Senate.

“That’s the beauty of our democracy. The people’s voice is what counts,” Ossoff said. “The people demanded this economic relief. Georgia voters demanded this economic relief, we’ve delivered this economic relief. Now it’s time to pass voting rights measures and to advance a bold and historic infrastructure plan.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that Biden signed the American Rescue Plan into law on Thursday