Nine moderate House Democrats have told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) via letter that they will withhold their support for the Democratic-backed $3.5 trillion infrastructure package, a measure the Democrats planned on passing via budget reconciliation, unless the Senate-approved $1.2 trillion bill passes out of their own chamber first.
In the letter sent to Pelosi on Thursday, the moderates wrote, “It’s time to get shovels in the ground and people to work. We will not consider voting for a budget resolution until the $1.2T bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passes the House and is signed into law.” This move would unravel Democrat’s plan for moving Biden’s agenda through Congress.
The letter was released on Friday, and creates a probable insurmountable obstacle to the months-long balancing act performed by the Biden administration, which was looking to quickly pass both bills, one with bipartisan approval and the other via budget resolution.
This stance by the nine Democrats risks undermining Pelosi’s strategy. The budget resolution is set to be brought to a vote in the House the week of August 23. Pelosi’s slim margin of control means she can only afford to lose three members of her caucus in a vote on the budget measure, which passed the Senate on a party-line vote this week, and isn’t expected to garner any Republican support in the House.
Here are the nine moderate Representatives: Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, Carolyn Bourdeaux of Georgia, Filemon Vela of Texas, Jared Golden of Maine, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, Ed Case of Hawaii, Jim Costa of California, and Kurt Schrader of Oregon, all whom signed the letter.
With the moderate Democrats now conditioning their support of budget resolution on the passage of the $1.2 trillion bill in the House, this has now put Pelosi’s plan on shaky ground.
It looks for now that the infrastructure package could be on hold. Pelosi, in answer to the House progressives, has vowed to wait until the Senate finished the budget package to assure it addresses all priorities.
This is an ongoing event and will keep our readers updated with any progress and developments.
Maybe the Dems are beginning to see the corruption and insanity of their leadership? we can only hope.