Nancy Pelosi Admits Defeat By Pulling the Infrastructure Bill, But Refuses to Admit Defeat

She keeps babbling that they're closer to ever to having the votes to pass the bill.

They're so close to a compromise that the Democrats had to play into the "Democrats in Civil War" headlines by pulling a must-pass bill, and not making any announcement as to when a vote will be had.

I figured they'd mutually agree to re-schedule the vote for next week. But nope.

And note that a lot of the moderates have said that they wanted the vote to happen by this past Monday, or they wouldn't vote for it at all.

Facing an embarrassing defeat at the hands of progressives in her party, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was forced to cancel a vote on a Senate-passed $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill Thursday.

Democratic leadership failed to garner the support needed for passage after the party's far-left flank vowed to block the measure until there is movement on a sweeping $3.5 trillion social spending bill.

The feud threatens two of President Biden’s top legislative priorities and has so far confounded party leaders, senior congressional staffers, and White House aides who have sought a solution.

Pelosi had insisted all week that the infrastructure legislation would come up for a vote Thursday. She had initially promised moderate members of her conference who supported that measure that it would be voted on by Sept. 27, but allowed the deadline to slide as she sought to placate progressives who wanted to vote on the larger bill first.

The speaker was confident earlier Thursday that the $1.2 trillion bill would pass on her schedule, despite minimal whipping efforts from House Democratic leaders.

"I do not plan on not doing anything," she told reporters when asked if she would delay the vote. "I plan on moving forward in a positive direction. I'm only envisioning taking it up and winning."

Hours later, the speaker sought to put a positive spin on what she called a "productive and crucial day".

"Discussions continue with the House, Senate and White House to reach a bicameral framework agreement to Build Back Better through a [$3.5 trillion] reconciliation bill," Pelosi wrote in a so-called "Dear Colleague" letter.

...

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement that the two sides were "closer to an agreement than ever. But we are not there yet, and so, we will need some additional time to finish the work, starting tomorrow morning first thing."

That was, get this, another lie from the Norms-Restoring, Honesty-Prizing Biden White House.

Jazz Shaw at Hot Air has an amusing and accurate take on this: Pelosi finds new, creative ways to pretend the infrastructure bill is almost ready to pass.

Despite all the happy-talk, and the repeated insistence that "conversations were happening," Jazz Shaw points out that those "conversations" consisted of people hardening their positions, not softening them and seeking compromise.

That all sounds great until you stop and listen to what each of the factions was actually saying. During an interview with Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal yesterday afternoon, she was asked about the reconciliation bill and how far down she would be willing to come to move it forward so her caucus could vote for the infrastructure bill. It was an obvious reference to Joe Manchin's recently revealed memo saying he was looking to trim it down to $1.5 trillion. Her response was to ask what Manchin was "willing to give up" to bring the price tag down. She went on to list a number of progressive spending priorities that were clearly not going to be on the table for removal.

But Manchin isn’t budging either. And the House Progressive Caucus didn’t cough up a single person on camera willing to say that there was a compromise number in the works, nor did they suggest that they were ready to go along with the infrastructure package without getting what they want for the reconciliation bill.

Meanwhile, the usual Republicans joined the Democrats to pass the continuing resolution to keep the government operating in the absence of a budget.

They also still have to vote to raise the debt ceiling by October 18th.

Charles Schumer really wants to have Republican cover on the vote to raise the debt ceiling. Democrats refused to vote for that when Republicans were in control of Congress, and now McConnell is returning the favor.

By the way: Given that we all know it will be raised and that the Uniparty wants it to be raised, does it really matter who formally votes for it?

This is the kind of shit McConnell busies himself over instead of getting actual conservative priorities passed.

Remember when he allowed the Democrats to pass Obamacare, despite not having enough Democrats present to end the filibuster, in exchange for an agreement to force the Democrats to vote for the debt increase near prime-time?

Does anyone remember the epochal political rewards we reaped for that McConnell manuever?

I do remember Obamacare being passed because of McConnell's weakness. And that we all live with Obamacare today because of this.

But hey, we got that prime-time vote that no media propagandists worried too much about because of course they didn't.

In any event, Schumer proposed that the Senate could just ask for unanimous consent on the debt-raising bill, and then that would result in the measure being passed with no one's actual vote being recorded.

McConnell objected, so they'll have to have the vote.

Update: Commenters say McConnell's tactic is more clever and effective than I credited it as:

85 65 50 My understanding is that McConnell is trying to force the Dems to raise the debt ceiling via reconciliation, which would kill any hope of negotiating a compromise with Manchin and Sinema; the Dems would lose the reconciliation option for their boondoggle of a spending bill, and there's no way they'd get enough GOP votes for it.

Posted by: Colorado Alex in Exile at October 01, 2021 11:27 AM (jOcSX)

I will say, this is one of those times McConnell's knowledge of the Senate rules and knowing how to play them comes in handy.
Posted by: redchief at October 01, 2021 11:29 AM (Kab4E)

Agreed. This is Peak Mitch for me. Unfortunately, he only shows that kind of creativity when it comes to blocking something. When he's in the leadership, that creativity disappears; unless you count 'creative ways of blocking Trump' as a skill.
Posted by: Darrell Harri

posted by Ace at 12:19 PM

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