The Senate voted three times on immediately terminating the COVID emergency last year and it passed all three times – with growing Democratic support on each attempt, reaching 62 votes in November.

Nancy Pelosi never allowed a House vote. But House Republicans scheduled a vote for this week – likely today or tomorrow – and it was setting up as an embarrassing defeat for Biden with a large block of House Democrats likely to vote no.

That’s why Biden announced an end to the emergency in May, to give Dems cover to vote no.

That’s outrageous. The emergency ended a year and a half ago. It is dangerous and – to borrow a term from Biden – a “threat to democracy” to have the president act as a dictator.

One reason Biden doesn’t want to end the emergency: it allows him to continue dishing out money to his voters (I.e. student loan forgiveness and welfare benefits) unilaterally.