Speaker Pelosi faces new threat from moderate Democrats

WASHINGTON » House Speaker Nancy Pelosi faced a fresh hurdle Friday to passing President Joe Biden’s multitrilliondollar domestic policy aspirations, as nine moderate Democrats threatened to derail a budget blueprint crucial to opening the door to much of that spending.

In a letter to Pelosi, DCalif., the nine said they “will not consider voting” for a budget resolution mapping Democrats’ ambitious fiscal plans until the House approves a separate, Senate-passed package of road, broadband and other infrastructure projects and sends it to Biden.

“We simply can’t afford months of unnecessary delays and risk squandering this once-in-a-century, bipartisan infrastructure package,” the centrists wrote.

That’s the opposite of Pelosi’s current strategy as party leaders plot how to steer Biden’s agenda through a Congress the divided party runs by paper-thin margins. She’s repeatedly said her chamber won’t vote on the bipartisan, $1 trillion infrastructure measure that moderates covet until the Senate sends the House a companion, $3.5 trillion bundle of social safety net and environmental initiatives favored by progressives.

Progressives have applied their own pressure, saying many would vote against the infrastructure measure until the Senate approves the $3.5 trillion social and environment bill. That larger measure is unlikely to be ready until autumn. Democrats have too much at stake to let internal turmoil sink their domestic ambitions, but it was initially unclear how leaders would untie the knot. With Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., facing a similar moderates-vs.-progressives balancing act in his chamber, Biden may eventually need to play a more forceful role and prod rank-and-file lawmakers into line.