WASHINGTON — House Democrats delayed a vote on advancing President Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill and multi-trillion-dollar social safety net expansion as Speaker Nancy Pelosi struggled to tame a rebellion from centrist lawmakers who oppose her plan of action.
The stakes are high for Biden’s top two legislative priorities.
The House Rules Committee is set to meet Tuesday morning to reconsider the plan, which is to vote on the budget resolution that will allow them to begin work on $3.5 trillion package, as well as tee up votes on the Senate-passed infrastructure bill and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
The procedural vote to kick off the process was initially expected on Monday night, but Pelosi faced defections from a group of nine moderates who threatened to vote it down. They are insisting that the $550 billion infrastructure bill get an immediate vote and be signed into law before they start crafting the larger bill.
Democrats are set to hold a full caucus meeting in the morning, and the House is poised to open session at noon. But no votes are scheduled yet after a series of late-might meetings yielded no resolution.
Pelosi has said for months that the two bills must move side-by-side. Dozens of progressives say they won’t support the infrastructure bill without the bigger spending bill, while moderates are most interested in passing the infrastructure package into law.
The Speaker has sought to placate moderates by setting a target date of Oct. 1 to vote on the infrastructure bill in the House. But many of them want an ironclad guarantee that she has been reluctant to offer, because the chamber may not have the votes to pass it without the budget bill.
At the heart of the standoff is a bid for leverage over the multi-trillion-dollar bill. Progressives want to pass a sweeping expansion of the safety net, paid for with tax hikes on corporations and the wealthy. Centrist Democrats are leery of the $3.5 trillion price tag and more skeptical of some taxes.
The White House says it is standing by Pelosi’s approach to getting both bills on his desk, though Biden has not specifically weighed in on the sequencing of the votes.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
