Divided Democrats returning to House

WASHINGTON — House Democrats are preparing to take the first steps today toward adopting a roughly $3.5 trillion spending plan that would enable sweeping changes to the nation’s health care, education and tax laws, but rifts among party lawmakers threaten to stall the package’s swift advance.

The stalemate by now is well known: Nine moderate or conservative Democrats have rebelled against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi,

D-Calif., and the party’s progressive wing, threatening to block a decision on the reconciliation blueprint necessary to allow the $3.5 trillion social policy measure championed by the party’s left flank to pass with only Democratic backing unless the House immediately votes on the bipartisan infrastructure bill. A broader coalition of 19 socalled Blue Dog Democrats also wants the infrastructure vote to come as soon as possible.

Without those nine lawmakers, Pelosi and her progressive allies do not have the votes to adopt the budget in the face of sustained, unanimous GOP opposition. But the speaker may not be able to accede to their demands, either, since the nearly 100 members who belong to the party’s Congressional Progressive Caucus previously signaled they would withhold their votes on infrastructure until Congress completes work on its budget. That includes both the outline set for a vote this week as well as the final reconciliation package, as liberals seek to maximize their political leverage and ensure their priorities don’t fall out of a final deal.

The Senate adopted both packages before departing for recess earlier this month.

Despite wide-ranging support for some of the new spending, the party’s liberal and centrist wings remain at odds over how exactly to proceed, raising the potential for defections that Democrats simply cannot afford.

The clamor for a quick victory on infrastructure, both for congressional Democrats and President Joe Biden, has only grown louder amid the anguish over Afghanistan. Democratic leaders hope to pass a rule tonight for debating the budget measure, the infrastructure bill and an unrelated voting-rights bill, with final votes scheduled for Tuesday.

“Our country desperately needs this direct reinvestment in our crumbling infrastructure. We also desperately need to prove our dysfunctional government can actually work,” said Rep. Ed Case of Hawaii, one of the nine Democrats at odds with the party’s leaders.

Even if the party does ultimately come together, however, some Democrats acknowledged this weekend the spat has lasting significance — foreshadowing potential further clashes as lawmakers translate their budget into fuller legislation still to come.

“Is getting there going to be easy? No,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., the deputy vote counter for the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which has opposed the moderates’ demands. “It’s going to be a challenge. I’m confident we’ll get it done, but there are going to be curveballs and obstacles along the way.”

CAMPAIGN PLEDGES

The budget blueprint encompasses many of Democrats’ most cherished policy promises from the 2020 campaign, including pledges to expand Medicare, rethink immigration and spend new sums to combat climate change. Its adoption this week would inch Congress closer to delivering on Biden’s broader economic agenda.

Some of its most defining elements mirror proposals Biden put forward earlier this year as part of his jobs and families plans — and echo commitments that Democratic lawmakers say had helped them capture majorities in Congress during the last presidential race.

The spending blueprint envisions a major injection of new federal spending to help parents and children, including new funds for child care, universal prekindergarten and paid sick leave. On health care, meanwhile, Democrats hope the budget fosters a major expansion of Medicare so that it can cover dental, vision and hearing benefits, along with new prescription drug rules that might lower the cost of medicine for seniors.

Additional spending aims to address the effects of climate change by clamping down on pollution and incentivizing cleaner energy. Democrats say the money is essential, with some arguing the bipartisan infrastructure deal adopted by the Senate falls far short of what is necessary to combat the consequences of a warming planet. And Democrats have tucked into the budget other initiatives to help immigrants obtain lawful resident status, assist workers trying to unionize and ease the financial burden some Americans face in securing housing.

Democrats aspire to finance the proposal through a series of changes to tax laws that raise rates on corporations, investors and wealthy families — unwinding many of the cuts imposed under President Donald Trump.

But party lawmakers remain unsettled on the exact size and scope of these tax hikes, reflecting the tough task ahead of them to turn their rough budget outline into legislation. The vote this week would merely unlock the process known as reconciliation, a move that allows Democrats particularly in the Senate to bypass a Republican filibuster.

NINE OPPOSED

With no clear resolution in sight as of Sunday morning, the dispute risked scuttling Pelosi’s plans.

“I will vote against the budget resolution, as we’ve said, as the nine of us committed publicly,” said Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., who leads the nine centrists, on Saturday. “We will vote against a budget resolution if the infrastructure package isn’t brought up first.”

In a letter to lawmakers sent late Saturday, Pelosi again made the case for swift action on the budget as well as infrastructure before the end of September. “Any delay to passing the budget resolution threatens the timetable for delivering the historic progress and the transformative vision that Democrats share,” she said.

The process of crafting a bill, then shepherding it through the House and Senate, is expected to span months. And it is sure to test Biden, Pelosi and other party leaders in the meantime.

Khanna said Saturday that the Progressive Caucus remains resolute in its stance to “guarantee” that Congress acts on their agenda, including climate change. He described the moderates’ opposition — if they do ultimately fulfill their threat — as a “slap in the face of Joe Biden” since the president has endorsed Pelosi’s strategy.

Gottheimer, meanwhile, faulted progressives and the “far-left” portions of the Democratic Party for jeopardizing an infrastructure package that would improve the nation’s roads, bridges, pipes, ports and internet connections. Waiting until after reconciliation, he said, could prevent the passage of widely backed public-works spending until late in the fall.

While Gottheimer added that he supports a reconciliation package, the New Jersey Democrat stressed moderates are “holding strong to our principled beliefs.”

But some moderates have raised early alarms with the total $3.5 trillion price tag, once again putting them at odds with progressives, some of whom sought as much as $6 trillion earlier in the debate. Centrist House Democrats share those cost concerns with their counterparts in the Senate, including Sens. Joe Manchin III, D-W.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., who have signaled they expect to see the final package slimmed down.

Slashing the total size of the package could force Democrats to remove entire programs or lessen the amount of aid they provide toward health care, education and other priorities. Disputes over tax increases to pay for the package, meanwhile, would lessen its revenue — and force Democrats to scale back their spending if they hope to ensure their agenda does not add to the federal deficit.

Caught between two wings of her own party, Pelosi so far has refused to blink. The speaker and other House Democratic leaders urged “unanimity” on a call with the caucus on Tuesday. She issued a public letter that same day, warning that any delay “jeopardizes once-in-a-generation opportunity we face to enact initiatives that meet the needs of working families.” And Pelosi joined top Democratic lawmakers on a call with Biden on Thursday, stressing in a statement later that she and the White House share a “determination to produce results — and soon.”

The White House has sought to aid Pelosi’s efforts, as top aides to the president — including Louisa Terrell and Steve Ricchetti, and a trio of Cabinet secretaries — have called moderates in recent days to hear their concerns yet encourage them to fall in line. A person familiar with the outreach, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private conversations, confirmed the calls this weekend.

Gottheimer and other moderates on those calls have sought to negotiate a potential end to the standoff, a second source said, without offering specifics. But lawmakers ended last week with no deal in hand, leading the nine centrists to assert their stance in a series of statements Friday that argued for urgent fixes to the country’s inner workings.

“In a deeply divided Congress, it is virtually impossible to pass such major initiatives, and any changes or delays will likely cause this one to fail,” said Case.

Despite the dispute, Democratic leaders in the House and Senate still hope they will prevail — and have tasked key lawmakers to craft their portions of the bill by Sept. 15.

ALLIANCES FORM

Some of the same Democrats confronting their establishment leaders on the budget resolution have allied with them to fight off challenges from the Democratic left in the coming primary season.

Gottheimer founded the Team Blue political action committee with Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, and Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Ala., to defend incumbent Democrats against primary opponents.

Moderates have also allied with Shield PAC, founded by Democrats ousted in November from Republican-leaning districts, to push back on efforts to tar all Democrats with the slogans of the left. Some have backed a new pro-Israel group, Democratic Majority for Israel, determined to thwart the party’s emerging Palestinian-rights movement — and defeat left-wing candidates who they say have crossed an unacceptable political line on the Jewish state.

Friday, yet another centrist group, No Labels, began airing an advertisement backing Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, one of the nine holdouts on the budget who is being challenged by a young liberal, Jessica Cisneros, in the upcoming primary season. The ad extols him for “fighting for the Biden agenda,” though arguably he is now trying to delay it.

The idea, moderates say, is to inoculate the party from slogans like “Defund the Police” that were effectively used against swing-district Democrats in November and stop progressive gains before divisions in the Democratic Party grow as deep as they have been in the Republican Party. The issue is more about tone and cooperation than ideology, said Mark Mellman, a longtime Democratic strategist and pollster, who helped found the Democratic Majority for Israel and its PAC.

“There’s nothing revolutionary about ‘Medicare for All,’ moving to a clean energy economy, a $15 minimum wage,” he said. “There’s a lot of consistency around the general direction of policy. But the rhetoric is different.”

The efforts have left liberals feeling aggrieved and worried that the Democratic establishment is actually hurting the party — by sapping the vital energy of younger voters. Young liberals like Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman not only defeated Democratic stalwarts to win their seats in New York but also have captured the imagination of the next generation, said Waleed Shahid, a spokesperson and strategist for Justice Democrats, which promotes progressive candidates.

Liberals say the moderates, not the progressives, are now the ones standing in the way of Biden’s agenda, by provoking the House’s stalemate and threatening the social policy bill in the Senate.

“The future of the party looks a lot more like AOC than Joe Biden,” Shahid said.