What are the objections to Pelosi's COVID-19 Bill?

Question

Subsequent to the Democrats blocking the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act in the US Senate on Sunday, March 22nd, in a 47-47 vote that was split along party lines, Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats released their own counter-proposal titled the Take Responsibility for Workers and Families Act.

Given that the Democrat bill

...would prevent corporations from using taxpayer money for stock buybacks, boost unemployment insurance, strengthen the child and earned income tax credits and inject nearly $40 billion into schools and universities to stabilize funding.

And also

...directs billions of dollars in grant funding for states to carry out this year's election through the Election Assistance Commission.

https://www.npr.org/2020/03/23/820155258/read-house-democrats-release-3rd-coronavirus-response-bill

what were the Republican objections to the counter-proposal?

Answer 1

House Republican Whip Steve Scalise has given a press release which outlines the objections of Republicans to the bill, calling it a wishlist of "insane far-left policies". The objections in particular seem to relate to the amount of non-coronavirus related provisions within the bill. Republicans argue that these measures are unnecessary, and an abuse of the pressure currently on Congress to come up with a rescue package.

I won't reproduce the whole list of provisions that Scalise has picked out as objectionable, but they include environmental reform policies, an increase to the minimum wage, a law to force companies to disclose board of director diversity statistics, and a requirement that unions should have a seat on airline corporate boards. Many of these policies seem tangentially related, if at all, to the COVID-19 crisis.

These concerns have been echoed by other Republican groups, such as the Republican House Oversight Committee, who tweeted:

Speaker Pelosi's #coronavirus bill includes:

• Provisions for a federal takeover of elections

• A climate change study on aviation

• Intrusive corporate diversity reporting burdens

Seriously? Now is the time to help struggling Americans, not play swamp politics with virus aid.

USA Today has published an opinion piece by James S. Robbins on the bill, which describes it as a "Christmas in March for liberal special interests". In particular, Robbins takes umbrage with the changes that would be made to elections:

Perhaps the most troubling sections of the bill are under the rubric ‘‘American Coronavirus/COVID–19 Election Safety and Security” or ‘‘ACCESS” Act. This section would impose requirements on states for early voting, voting by mail, required mailing of absentee ballots to everyone, ballot harvesting (i.e., having third parties deliver absentee ballots), online voter registration, same-day registration and other practices which undermine confidence in the integrity of the ballot. In these days of increasing threats to election security we should be moving rapidly back to in-person paper ballots, but this bill would be a radical step in the wrong direction.