Work continues on $1T infrastructure bill.

WASHINGTON >> Senators were laboring Sunday toward eventual passage of a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package, resigned to stay as long as it takes to overcome Republican holdouts who want to drag out final votes on one of President Joe Biden’s top priorities.

The bill has won widespread support from senators across the aisle and promises to unleash billions of dollars to upgrade roads, bridges, broadband internet, water pipes and other public works systems undergirding the nation. But a single Republican senator’s protest halted swift passage, forcing the Senate into long day and night sessions toward final votes early Tuesday.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., stressed to colleagues that they could proceed the “easy way or the hard way,” as the Senate slogged through its second consecutive weekend session.

“We’ll keep proceeding until we get this bill done,” Schumer said.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act would provide what Biden has called a “historic investment” in public works programs, the first part of the president’s his rebuilding agenda. Once voting wraps up, senators immediately will turn to the budget outline for a $3.5 trillion package of child care, elder care and other programs that is a much more partisan undertaking and expected to draw only Democratic support.

As many as 20 Republicans are expected to join Democrats in what would be a vote on final passage. Overcoming a 60-vote hurdle Saturday with backing from 18 Republicans was a sign that the bipartisan tenuous alliance could hold on the public works package.

Another procedural vote had been expected late Sunday, as senators push toward Tuesday’s final passage. If approved, the bill would go to the House.

Despite the momentum, action ground to a halt over the weekend when Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., an ally of Donald Trump, forced the Senate to run out the clock on debate time, refusing to consent to speeding up the process.

Hagerty said Sunday he was trying to prevent a “socialist debt bomb” of new government spending.