This week was the deadline that a group of “moderate” Democrats pushed on Speaker Pelosi to pass the Bipartisan Infrastructure Package (BIP). This group of relative unknowns felt like they’d walked away with some great victory. Well, the deadline has come and gone and it looks like we won’t be seeing a vote for some time now. I doubt many people are surprised, the deadline was silly and artificial and I think Pelosi largely agreed to it to help her rebellious members save face after making an embarrassment of themselves. It doesn’t look like any of them are speaking up about it, which is smart. They tried to force her hand and she literally laughed in their faces.
The House Progressive Caucus has said since the beginning that its 94 members wouldn’t vote on the BIP unless it was in conjunction with the $3.5T partisan “reconciliation package”. They’ve been consistent about this and Pelosi understood that the BIP was headed for a major defeat (House Republicans aren’t going to vote for it, which makes the “bipartisan” label kind of ridiculous).
Rather than panicking, I think the HPC did the right thing here. I think there are a lot of moderates in both houses who would have voted for the BIP and then bailed on the partisan bill. Many moderates simply aren’t committed to the kind of investments we need to combat the climate crisis, and the only way to get their votes is by using whatever leverage we have.
The September 27 deadline was always unrealistic. President Biden is still negotiating with holdouts Sinema and Manchin in the Senate, and we still have time. Neither senator has been particularly impressive, both seem to lack basic knowledge about the plan, and neither has a salient objection to what the president wants to do. Biden is hardly a progressive champion, and the $3.5T already represents $2.5T in concessions by progressives. It’s possible that these two could tank the president’s whole agenda by sheer intransigence, but I think that’s unlikely.
Manchin, who loves having his name in the papers, is known for his theatrics. He will probably make a big show of things, extract some minor concessions and then vote for the bill. Sinema is more of a wild card because she’s so new, and has previously been pretty absent from her job. She doesn’t seem like the kind of person who would hold out against the entirety of her own party, including the president, so I think she’ll get in line at some point.
Pelosi and Biden have been around a long time. They’re both shrewd operators and they are probably the most qualified to get this thing done. If they can’t do it, then I doubt anyone else can either. No matter what happens, we will still have a herculean task ahead of us.
Rather than panicking, we need to keep the pressure on. A failure here would be near catastrophic, but the game isn’t over just yet.
The Mangrove 