House Democrats gear up for a showdown amid divisions over infrastructure strategy

By CNN Newsource

August 23, 2021 3:01 AM

Published August 23, 2021 9:46 PM

By Clare Foran, Annie Grayer, Daniella Diaz, Kristin Wilson and Ryan Nobles, CNN

Divisions among House Democrats over how to enact President Joe Biden’s sweeping infrastructure agenda are coming to a head as lawmakers return to Washington this week for a key budget vote.

The House was on track to vote as early as Monday night on a budget resolution for the President’s spending package after the Senate approved a $3.5 trillion measure earlier this month. But Democratic divisions continued to jeopardize its passage in the House as negotiators searched for a deal late into the night.

Democrats are putting forward a vote that would pass the budget resolution tonight using a special procedural move, but it is unclear if it will succeed.

Leadership is pressing ahead with a procedural vote that, if passed, would bypass debate and a separate vote on the budget resolution, even though they have received no assurance from moderate Democrats that they would support the move.

The ultimate goal is for Democrats to be able to craft a sweeping legislative package to expand the social safety net under a budget process known as reconciliation, which would not be subject to the Senate filibuster’s 60-vote threshold.

But to do so, both chambers need to adopt the budget resolution, and a group of nine moderate House Democrats are holding that up, pushing to first pass a separate $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure deal — which the Senate has already passed — before voting on the budget resolution. Their request runs counter to leadership’s plan for advancing the two agenda items.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has offered the nine House moderates preventing the House from voting on the budget resolution a deal to move forward, according to source familiar.

The deal would include a deeming motion, which means the budget resolution would be deemed passed when the rule is passed. The deal also includes assurance that the bipartisan infrastructure deal will get a vote in the House by October 1.

“We just don’t want to hold the (bipartisan infrastructure package) hostage because of reconciliation,” the source said.

By a vote of 8-4, the House Rules Committee on Monday evening advanced a rule governing debate of a voting bill, the infrastructure bill and the budget resolution, which includes a deeming motion on the budget resolution.

In simpler terms, the House will now debate the rule on the floor and then vote on the rule. If that vote passes, then the budget resolution is deemed passed without requiring any further debate or votes.

Pelosi implored her members to support the budget resolution during a closed door caucus meeting Monday evening.

According to a source in the room, Pelosi told the Democrats to focus on the goals of what they want to see passed, not the process of getting there.

“It is unfortunate in my view that we have to have a discussion about process, when we want to have a discussion of policy,” she said. “Right now, we have an opportunity to pass something so substantial for our country, so transformative we haven’t seen anything like it.”

Pelosi went on to warn the group that passing both the reconciliation package and the infrastructure package is vital to Democrats keeping their campaign promises.

“Our people who put a Democrat in the White House and Democratic Congress are watching to see how we meet their needs,” she said. “We cannot squander this majority and this Democratic White House by not passing what we need to do.”

Pelosi has indicated for months that the House won’t take up the bipartisan bill until the Senate passes the larger and more sweeping package through budget reconciliation. She’s feeling pressure from her left flank, too: House progressives say they won’t support the bipartisan plan on its own without the reconciliation measure.

The disagreement presents an early test of whether Democrats will be able to overcome their internal divisions with a narrow majority in both chambers of Congress and successfully move Biden’s agenda forward.

Democratic leadership has urged unity and stressed the high stakes of the moment as they try to bring along both ideological wings of the party without losing critical votes from either end of the spectrum. The party’s factions will now be on the spot over how far they are willing to go in an attempt to meet their demands.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told members during a Democratic caucus call last week that the rules for budget resolution, the bipartisan Senate infrastructure deal and H.R. 4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, will be voted on Monday night when the House returns, according to a source on the call. Hoyer then said that final passage of the budget resolution and H.R. 4 would likely be on Tuesday.

In the wake of the demand from moderates, Pelosi has urged a swift vote on the budget resolution. “The House must pass the budget resolution immediately,” Pelosi wrote in a letter to House Democrats last week.

Prior to that, the nine moderates said in a letter of their own that they “will not consider voting for a budget resolution” until the bipartisan bill has passed the House and been signed into law.

The letter was signed by Reps. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, Vicente Gonzalez, Filemon Vela and Henry Cuellar of Texas, Jared Golden of Maine, Ed Case of Hawaii, Kurt Schrader of Oregon, Jim Costa of California and Carolyn Bourdeaux of Georgia.

Following that letter, Pelosi announced that she had asked the Rules Committee to “explore the possibility” of a rule that would advance the budget resolution and the bipartisan infrastructure package.

The group of moderates responded to the news by reiterating that they want to first vote on the bipartisan bill before moving on to the budget resolution.

On Friday, as the lawmakers again reiterated their push for an immediate vote on the deal, Gottheimer, the group’s leader and co-chair of the Problem Solvers Caucus, indicated he plans to support the budget resolution.

“I believe we should first vote immediately on the bipartisan infrastructure package, send it to the President’s desk, and then quickly consider the budget resolution, which I plan to support,” the New Jersey Democrat said in a statement.

Pressed Monday by CNN’s Jim Sciutto if he was willing to take the chance to have that vote first and risk the two bills, Gottheimer was confident the Democrats were not risking anything.

“I believe both will move forward and get done. I think we’ll work this out. You know, I’m ready to sit at the table and so are my colleagues ready to sit at the table and figure this out. And we can,” he said on “Newsroom.” “But there’s no reason to wait four, five months or more sitting on this infrastructure package and risking that or threatening and holding it hostage like some of my colleagues are doing. That just doesn’t make sense.”

Gottheimer also said Monday he has spoken with Pelosi, adding “I think the votes from all of our caucus, if we voted on infrastructure today, that they would all be there.”

But the group’s threats to a process that has been blessed by the White House and Democratic congressional leaders has angered progressives, who have pledged to support the bipartisan bill, despite viewing it as too lean, as a companion to the more robust reconciliation package.

On Monday, a coalition of progressive groups — the Working Families Party, Organize For Justice, Indivisible Project and Sunrise Movement — launched a six-figure television and digital ad buy targeting the nine moderates in their home districts.

“Constituents deserve to know the truth about how these nine conservative Democrats are blocking urgent action on jobs, climate, and child care,” Alexandra Rojas, of Organize for Justice and Justice Democrats, said in a statement. “Americans have been waiting for over a decade for action on many of these issues, it’s time to deliver results.”

The ads are being launched, in part, as a rejoinder to outside messaging from centrist groups like No Labels, which are pushing for an immediate vote on the Senate bill.

House Democratic leadership has the White House standing by them as they seek to navigate the issue.

In a statement to CNN last week, White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said Biden backed Pelosi’s efforts.

“The President strongly supports the Rule, which provides the mechanism to bring the bipartisan infrastructure bill, the Build Back Better plan, and voting rights legislation to the floor,” Bates told CNN. “All three are critical elements of the President’s agenda, and we hope that every Democratic member supports this effort to advance these important legislative actions.”

This story and headline have been updated with additional developments Monday.

CNN’s Gregory Krieg, Lauren Fox, DJ Judd and Chandelis Duster contributed to this report.

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