Pressure to pass a last-ditch COVID-19 relief bill before the end of 2020 is coming from all sides. Is America any closer to a vote? By Monday evening, the bipartisan group of Senators that introduced a $908 billion proposal for emergency COVID-19 relief will have a fully fledged bill. Whether Congress will vote to pass it is another story. “We’re going to introduce a bill tomorrow night,” Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy said Sunday on CNN State of the Union. “What Leader [Mitch] McConnell decides to do, I don’t have control over. I only can do what I can do.” Democratic and Republican lawmakers have been working together through the weekend in an effort to nail down legal language for the COVID-19 rescue bill before the end of 2020. But they’re unlikely to face a warm welcome from either party. The deep divisions that have stymied a stimulus package since May have taken new forms in the past week, with both sides breaking ranks to voice their demands as to what absolutely should and shouldn’t be in the final package. The $908 billion proposal won’t include a second direct payment, which presents a steep hurdle among some lawmakers. Funding for state and local budgets, and debate over liability protection to keep businesses and institutions from being sued over COVID-19 transmission are other hot button issues that could delay or derail the bill. For the mixed group working on the package, now is the time to unify, not to dig in heels. “We must act. It is irresponsible that we have not acted to date. It is absolutely a failure of the Congress,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Sunday on CNN Inside Politics. “We want to get aid out to people who are really, really struggling. A coronavirus aid proposal before Jan. 1 is now considered emergency legislation to institute a safety net for expiring benefits that could leave tens of million of unemployed Americans without an income and millions of households facing eviction. A sweeping deal like the $2 trillion CARES Act from March, which authorized a $1,200 stimulus check for most Americans, is more likely to return to the table in early 2021, top US leaders have implied. “This relief package won’t be the total answer even if it gets passed, but it’s an important first step. There’s so much we have to do,” President-elect Joe Biden said Friday. With or without a bill, Biden has some executive actions at his disposal to push for more aid after he takes office Jan. 20. “We’ve been meeting day and night for the last month. We were on a call all day yesterday. We’ll get on a call this afternoon to finish things up,” Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin said on Fox News Sunday . “There is no way, no way, that we are going to leave Washington without taking care of the emergency needs of our people. And that’s all of our country.” It may not be that simple. The stimulus check argument is raring to surface again this week with renewed force. Republican Sen. Josh Hawley and Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent, are teaming up to amend the $908 billion proposal with another round of $1,200 payments, following the template set out in spring’s CARES Act. “If the Senate of the United States can find hundreds of billions of dollars to give to big government and big business, surely it can find some relief for working families and working individuals,” Hawley said Dec. 11. In an effort to find middle ground, an alternate $918 billion package from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and the White House proposed to send $600 checks to qualifying adults, plus an additional $600 for each qualified child dependent. However, the offer comes at the expense of $300 of federal unemployment aid per week for four months. “If you’re send a stimulus check of $600 or whatever it may be — it was $1,200 before — you’re sending it to people who still have a paycheck and still have a job. If you send a check to an unemployment person, you are sending to a person who has no lifeline — it’s done at the end of this month, they’ve got nothing,” Manchin said. On the Republican side, McConnell proposed several times this week that the bill should drop the two thorniest issues — funding for state and local programs and a liability shield to protect businesses from COVID-19 related lawsuits — and instead pass a bill focusing on the areas of agreement. But McConnell’s opponents view the trade-off as a dealbreaker, arguing that state funding is necessary to help pay for firefighters and sanitation workers. Other lawmakers seem to be warming up to the idea of stripping out funding for the issue most likely to capsize talks in order to pass the emergency bill now, and pick up other measures after the new year. Though Congress is hoping to wrap up its business next week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said if lawmakers don’t pass more aid by next Friday, Dec. 18, Congress could keep working through the end of the month. “We’ve been here after Christmas, you know. We were here five years ago,” Pelosi said Thusday during her weekly press conference. “People do want to get home for the holidays, such as that is. But what’s more important is that we get the job done for the American people before the holidays.