• Senate Democrats aim to advance the For the People Act, a sweeping elections reform bill that will influence registration, voting, campaign finance and congressional redistricting
• The Senate Rules Committee held a hearing on the legislation, during which Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called it necessary to combat restrictive voting laws and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell cast it as a power grab
• If the panel advances the plan to the full Senate, it faces long odds of passage

• Covid-19 booster shots will be free to the public if they are needed to control the ongoing pandemic, David Kessler, chief science officer of the White House Covid-19 response team, told U.S. lawmakers Tuesday
• “We do have the funds to purchase the next round and to assure if there are boosters that they are free just as the last round,” Kessler said at a Senate hearing
• If booster shots are deemed necessary by federal health officials, seniors and people with underlying conditions would likely be the first to have access to them, as they did during the first round of vaccines

• Uber and Lyft will offer free rides to vaccination sites until July 4 as part of a new White House partnership, the Biden administration announced Tuesday
• The White House said the initiative would launch within the next two weeks
• The Biden administration said the program should help to reach the president’s goal of vaccinating 70% of U.S. adults with at least one shot by Independence Day

• President Joe Biden is holding high-profile meetings this week with a bipartisan group of senators whose input could shape the outlines of any final bill
• Right now, there are no visible areas of overlap between the Democratic and Republican infrastructure funding plans
• In the House, rank-and-file Democrats question whether their Republican colleagues really want a bipartisan compromise

• President Joe Biden said his administration will distribute more coronavirus relief funds as it aims to help companies hire more workers
• While he urged companies to boost wages and make workplaces safe to entice workers, Biden also said people who do not take an offer for a “suitable job” would lose unemployment benefits unless they have a specific coronavirus-related concern
• Job growth slowed in April, and Biden disputed the notion that a $300 per week enhanced unemployment benefit deterred Americans from taking jobs

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