Two victories for Dems in House
WASHINGTON — Striking a deal with moderates, House Democratic leaders muscled President Joe Biden’s multitrillion-dollar budget blueprint over a key hurdle Tuesday, ending a risky standoff and putting the party’s domestic infrastructure agenda back on track.
The 220-212 vote was a first step toward drafting Biden’s $3.5 billion rebuilding plan this fall, and the narrow outcome, in the face of stiff Republican opposition, showed the power a few voices have to alter the debate and signaled the challenges ahead still threatening to upend the president’s agenda.
After a turbulent 24 hours that brought House proceedings to a standstill, Speaker Nancy Pelosi told her colleagues before the vote that the legislation would lead to a federal investment on par with the New Deal and the Great Society.
Pelosi brushed aside the delays. “That’s just part of the legislative process,” she said, according to an aide granted anonymity to discuss a closed-door caucus meeting.
Tensions had flared as a band of moderate lawmakers threatened to withhold their votes for
the $3.5 trillion plan. They were demanding the House first approve a nearly $1 trillion bipartisan package of other public works projects that’s already passed the Senate.
In brokering the compromise, Pelosi committed to voting on the bipartisan package no later than Sept. 27, an attempt to assure lawmakers it won’t be left on the sidelines. It’s also in keeping with Pelosi’s insistence that the two bills move together as a more complete collection of Biden’s priorities. Pelosi has set a goal of passing both by Oct. 1.
Late Tuesday, House
Democrats passed legislation that would strengthen a landmark civil rights-era voting law weakened by the Supreme Court over the past decade, a step party leaders tout as progress in their quest to fight back against voting restrictions advanced in Republican-led states.
The bill, which is part of a broader Democratic effort to enact a sweeping overhaul of elections, was approved on a 219-212 vote, with no Republican support. Its passage was praised by Biden, who said it would protect a “sacred right” and called on the Senate to “send this
important bill to my desk.”
But the measure faces dim prospects in that chamber, where Democrats do not have enough votes to overcome opposition from Senate Republicans, who have rejected the bill as “unnecessary” and a Democratic “power grab.”
That bottleneck puts Democrats right back where they started with a slim chance of enacting any voting legislation before the 2022 midterm elections, when some in the party fear new GOP laws will make it harder for many Americans to vote.