This is not proof of a healthy democracy

WASHINGTON >> The bipartisan agreement on infrastructure legislation that survived a key Senate test vote Wednesday is a very big deal — and a very big win for the Biden administration. But this victory still might not be big enough.

I’m not talking about the dollar amount. While the top line of roughly $1 trillion includes “only” about $550 billion in new spending, that’s enough to fix a lot of roads and bridges, replace a lot of lead pipes and bring Internet access to a lot of rural communities. What it may not be able to do is achieve President Joe Biden’s goal of demonstrating “that our democracy can function, deliver, and do big things.”

This, after all, is Biden’s theory of the case: that despite all the rancor and dysfunction in our politics, the traditional method of painstaking, inchby-inch compromise can produce results, even in the Senate, where the majority’s will can be thwarted by the filibuster.

“Of course, neither side got everything they wanted in this deal,” Biden said in a statement. “But that’s what it means to compromise and forge consensus — the heart of democracy.”

The president has a right to claim vindication — but only in a narrow sense. It took marathon negotiations and the patience of Job to persuade 17 Republican senators to move forward on legislation that will shower their constituents with money, jobs and other benefits. During Biden’s long years in the Senate, infrastructure spending was as close to noncontroversial as major legislation could be. The old cliche description of a lawmaker’s job was “bringing home the bacon,” and virtually all senators were carnivores.

Given the partisanship that now deranges even the more self-interested aspects of our politics, that any major initiative proposed by a Democratic president made it past the threat of a Republican filibuster is a victory. The question is whether this is a harbinger of good things to come or an aberration. I always prefer to be optimistic, whenever possible. But I also try not to allow hope to triumph over experience.

I’m willing to assume that House Democrats, who wanted to see more spending in this “hard infrastructure” bill to combat climate change and who insist a much larger “human infrastructure” package must also be passed, will not do anything to deep-six the Senate deal. Progressives in both chambers have been both pragmatic and patient about the reality of a split Senate in which the votes needed to eliminate or suspend the filibuster are simply not there — at least not yet.

I’m also willing to assume that the Senate Republicans who voted to advance the infrastructure bill will not be cowed by the sputtering rage of former president Donald Trump, who is beside himself that Biden would be able to celebrate any win, especially one he craved for himself.

It is “a loser for the USA, a terrible deal, and makes the Republicans look weak, foolish, and dumb,” Trump said in a statement. “Don’t do it Republicans — Patriots will never forget! If this deal happens, lots of primaries will be coming your way!”

Trump’s bluster aside, let’s say the bill wins final Senate passage, survives a conference with the House and gets signed into law in a big, bipartisan White House ceremony. What difference would it make to the health of America’s deliberative bodies?

Not much, I fear.

Some Republican senators have already started making noise about how concerned they are about deficits and how they will not vote to raise the debt ceiling this fall — a tried-andtrue GOP ploy for hamstringing Democratic presidents. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-VT., has already halved his ambitions for spending on human infrastructure and climate change, now favoring a package totaling $3.5 trillion — which Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-ariz., has already said is a nonstarter for her at that price.

And other priorities deemed even more important by most Democrats — who, you might recall, do control the White House and both chambers of Congress — are going nowhere fast.

The first anniversary of George Floyd’s death has come and gone, and still there is no GOP agreement on a modest set of policing reforms that should, among other things, ban deadly chokeholds. And on what has to be the Democrats’ biggest priority — guaranteeing voting rights for all Americans, in the face of a state-level GOP crusade to disenfranchise minority voters — there has been zero Republican support for new federal legislation in either the House or the Senate.

Hooray that we have a bipartisan compromise on infrastructure. But to make Biden’s pronouncement that “democracy can function” true, the right to vote has to be protected. And I don’t see how that happens as long as the filibuster survives. A Congress that can barely touch its meat isn’t likely to eat its vegetables.