Biden’s agenda faces test as Democrats draw lines
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s legislative ambitions face a crucial test in the narrowly divided Congress this month, with key Democratic senators signaling they want to pump the brakes as party leaders move to quickly pivot from last month’s $1.9 trillion pandemic relief act to an even larger infrastructure and jobs bill and other pressing policy items.
Republican leaders, meanwhile, are beginning to mount fierce opposition to those plans, even as a subset of GOP centrists share rising frustration about a lack of meaningful outreach from Biden, who has billed himself as a bipartisan dealmaker.
With lawmakers returning Monday from a two-week Easter recess, those crosscurrents could turn the coming weeks into a make-or-break moment for some of Biden’s biggest initiatives — and perhaps a final chance to demonstrate whether bipartisan cooperation will be possible.
On one hand, liberal Democrats are pressing Biden to take advantage of high approval ratings and a popular legislative agenda to move swiftly on trillions of dollars of new spending and potential tax hikes on corporations and wealthy Americans, as well as legislation to restrict guns, expand voting access and secure civil rights for LGBT Americans.
“The time is now to go forward,” said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who said he is already preparing to use special procedures to allow Democrats to pass legislation without Republican support. “This country faces enormous crises that have got to be addressed right now. When you have half a million people who are homeless, I’m not going to slow down. … When the scientists tell us we have five or six years before there will be irreparable damage done because of climate change, I’m not going to slow down.”
On the other hand, some Democrats are pressing Biden and
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to negotiate with Republicans. Most conspicuously, moderate Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., vowed Wednesday ina Washington Post op-ed to never “eliminate or weaken” the filibuster while also casting doubt on using the special budget procedures Sanders is exploring to fast-track bills.
“The time has come to end these political games, and to usher a new era of bipartisanship where we find common ground on the major policy debates facing our nation,” he wrote, adding: “Generations of senators who came before us put their heads down and their pride aside to solve the complex issues facing our country. We must do the same.”
Ina Wall Street Journal interview published a day earlier, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., also defended the current rules and called on senators “to change their behavior and begin to work together, which is what the country wants us to do.”
The statements from both Manchin and Sinema were consistent with their past positions, which have defended the role of the filibuster — the long-standing Senate rule that has evolved into a de facto 60-vote supermajority requirement for most legislation — and promoted the need for cross-aisle cooperation.
But the timing of Sinema’s interview and Manchin’s op-ed — and his warnings about using the special budget “reconciliation” rules for another massive spending package — have galvanized attention on Capitol Hill and at the White House, with key officials mindful that every lawmaker’s opinion matters in a 50-50 Senate.
White House officials do not plan to change their strategy toward the Senate, despite mounting signals that Biden’s agenda will run into procedural hurdles maintained by his own party. The president has remained unclear on his filibuster position, criticizing the tool as a relic of the Jim Crow era yet not saying he would support being able to pass all bills with a simple majority of votes in the Senate.