President Biden arrives with negotiator-in-chief credentials

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden used his inaugural address Wednesday to repeat a key tenet of his campaign – a vow to restore bipartisanship in Washington. The first test of whether he can deliver starts immediately as the new administration attempts to negotiate another coronavirus relief package in the coming weeks.

Last week, Biden unveiled a proposal for $1.9 trillion in aid that will serve as the starting point for the next round of negotiations. House and Senate Democrats in control of Congress are eager to pass Biden’s plan, and they don’t plan to let Republicans stand in their way.

But lawmakers who’ve worked closely with Biden during his time as vice president and as a senator say he will undoubtedly try to strike a deal with Republicans before turning to more partisan options for passing his aid package, like the budget reconciliation process or eliminating the legislative filibuster.

“His first impulse, and I’ve seen this many times with Joe, will be to try to get bipartisan agreement,” former Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat, told CQ Roll Call. “But he is smart and he knows his options, and he will have reconciliation in his back pocket. And anybody negotiating will understand he has reconciliation in his back pocket. And that gives him increased leverage.”

Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid also said in an interview that he expects Biden – “a person who understands that legislation is the art of compromise” – to try to forge a bipartisan deal. But if that doesn’t work, Biden shouldn’t bother with reconciliation; the Nevada Democrat said his party should skip right to the nuclear option.

“I think there’s going to come a time if the impasse is not broken that we’re going to have to get rid of the filibuster,” Reid said. “I would think two or three months at the most.”

Biden will decide for himself how long to try for a bipartisan deal,

Reid said, but he predicts the president will figure out “pretty quickly” whether Republicans will cooperate.

None of the options available to Biden, including eliminating the legislative filibuster, will be easy. In the House, Democrats have 221 seats, the narrowest majority in decades. In the 50-50 Senate, Vice President Kamala Harris’ ability to break ties is the only reason Democrats hold the majority.

Bipartisan deals, Biden’s preferred route to passing legislation, will require support from at least 10 Republicans in the Senate because of the chamber’s 60-vote threshold on legislation.

Biden helped negotiate bipartisan deals as vice president during the Obama administration, but not all of his efforts resulted in the kind of broad GOP support that he’ll need now as president.

Take the 2009 stimulus package Congress passed shortly after President Barack Obama and Biden were sworn in for their first term.

Obama had Biden use his Senate connections to recruit Republican support, which was needed because Democrats only had 58 votes on their side and the ailing Edward M. Kennedy, D-mass., who died later that year, was at times absent. Ultimately only three Senate Republicans voted for the package – Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania – though it was just the margin needed.

Biden had started his outreach on the 2009 stimulus during the transition, which is something he hasn’t done this time. Several GOP senators, including Collins, told CQ Roll Call Tuesday they’ve not heard from Biden or his team since he released his coronavirus relief plan last week.

“I have not, which surprises me,” Collins said. She said it “seems premature” to declare another $1.9 trillion is needed before the $900 billion enacted last month is allocated, but she agrees additional vaccination funding will be required “quickly.”