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The passage of the legislation was the culmination of several efforts that Mr. Schumer said began in the Senate gym in 2019, when he approached Senator Todd Young, R-Indiana, with the idea. Mr. Yang, a fellow China hawk, has previously worked with Democrats on foreign policy. Ultimately, Senate support was made possible only by an unlikely collision of factors: a pandemic that revealed the cost of a global semiconductor shortage, heavy lobbying by the chip industry, Mr. Yang’s insistence on urging his colleagues to break with party orthodoxy, and support for the bill, and Mr. Schumer’s ascension to the top Senate job. Many senators, including Republicans, saw the legislation as a critical step to bolster America’s semiconductor manufacturing capabilities as the nation has become dangerously dependent on foreign countries — especially an increasingly vulnerable Taiwan — for advanced chips. Mr. Schumer said it was not too difficult to gather votes from Democrats, who tend to be less resistant to government spending. But he also nodded to Republicans, including Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader: “To their credit, 17 Republicans, including McConnell, came in and said, ‘This is an expense we have to do.’ The legislation, known in Washington by an ever-changing carousel of lofty-sounding names, defies easy definition. At more than 1,000 pages, it is simultaneously a research and development bill, a short- and long-term jobs bill, a manufacturing bill and a semiconductor bill.
