Centrist Dems call for passage of infrastructure bill

WASHINGTON — Nine moderate House Democrats told Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday that they will not vote for a budget resolution meant to pave the way for the passage of a $3.5 trillion social policy package later this year until a Senate-approved infrastructure bill passes the House and is signed into law.

The pledge, in a letter released Friday, reveals a major rift that threatens the carefully choreographed, two-track effort by congressional Democrats and the Biden administration to enact both a trilliondollar, bipartisan infrastructure deal and an even more ambitious — but partisan — social policy measure. The nine House members are more than enough to block consideration of the budget blueprint in a House where Democrats hold a three-seat majority.

The Senate passed the $1 trillion infrastructure bill Tuesday with 69 votes, including 19 Republicans. It then approved, on a party-line vote early Wednesday, a $3.5 trillion budget resolution that, if passed by the House, would allow Democrats in both chambers to assemble the social policy bill this fall without fear of a Republican filibuster in the Senate.

Pelosi has called the House back early from its summer recess to consider the budget resolution the week of Aug. 23. To assuage liberal Democrats more interested in the social policy bill, Pelosi promised that she would not bring the infrastructure bill to a vote in the House until the Senate passed the social policy bill. Liberals fear that once the infrastructure bill is signed, moderate Democrats in the House and Senate will withdraw their support for the far-reaching social policy measure.

But that social policy bill might not pass until well into the fall, if ever, given the 50-50 partisan split in the Senate. And moderate House Democrats say delaying a vote on infrastructure runs the risk of unforeseen events derailing it.

“With the livelihoods of hardworking American families at stake, we simply can’t afford months of unnecessary delays and risk squandering this one-in-a-century, bipartisan infrastructure package,” reads the letter, which has Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., as the first signer. “It’s time to get shovels in the ground and people to work.”

More than half of the nearly 100-strong Congressional Progressive

Caucus has taken the opposite position, saying they will not vote for the infrastructure bill until they have a social policy measure funding their priorities: climate change, education, health care, family leave, child care and elder care.

The letter was signed by Gottheimer and Reps. Filemon Vela of Texas, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Ed Case of Hawaii, Kurt Schrader of Oregon, Carolyn Bourdeaux of Georgia, Jared Golden of Maine, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas and Jim Costa of Fresno.