The budget resolution is moving towards its acme as top Democrats plans House votes next week suggesting a showdown ahead with rebellious party moderates who want the chamber to first approve a separate $1 trillion bill financing highways and water supply.
House leader made clear on Tuesday that’s not their plan and the vote could clear a path for future passage of a $3.5 trillion package.
The House returns the previous day for what lawmakers hope will be an abbreviated interruption of their August recess.
If all Republicans oppose the budget as expected, Democrats could lose no more than three of their own votes and prevail.
The budget’s congressional approval would prevent Republicans from killing the subsequent $3.5 trillion bill, probably this fall, from bill-killing Senate filibusters.
“Remember the psychology of consensus. We are in this together, we have the leader of our party and we are pursuing the attainment” of our agenda, Hoyer said, according to the person on the call.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., also made clear that a final vote on the public works bill would wait until the larger $3.5 trillion measure progresses.
In a letter to fellow Democrats late Tuesday, she said the House must pass the budget blueprint “immediately” or endanger “the once-in-a-generation opportunity we face to enact initiatives that meet the needs of working families at this crucial time.”
Together, the two bills embody President Joe Biden’s and Democrats’ aspirations for bracing the economy, supporting families and combating climate change.
“These bills are critical for us maintaining our majority, and that must reign supreme,” said No. 3 House Democratic leader James Clyburn of South Carolina, a reference to next year’s congressional elections.
“A lot of us need to hold hands, we need to be protecting each other and march together.”
In a statement, Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., one of the maverick moderates, said Congress “cannot afford to wait months” to approve the infrastructure measure and added, “I’m confident we can sit down together and work this out.”
The House plans to vote on Monday evening on a procedural measure setting up future debate for the budget resolution, the infrastructure legislation and another Democratic priority restoring federal authority over states’ voting procedures that were curbed by the Supreme Court.
Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., a leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said a majority of its nearly 100 members have said in two surveys that they’d oppose the infrastructure measure if it came before the $3.5 trillion measure has progressed.
“Nobody’s budged,” she said. That suggests the moderates lack the votes to force Pelosi to change her plans.