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- Nine House Democrats are in a standoff with Pelosi that could derail Biden's infrastructure deal.
- The group – dubbed the "mod squad" – is threatening to vote against a key part of the Biden agenda.
- "We are firmly opposed to holding the president's infrastructure legislation hostage," they wrote in a Sunday Washington Post op-ed.
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Nine moderate House Democrats are set for a showdown with Speaker Nancy Pelosi that could throw the Biden administration's domestic policy agenda off the rails as it contends with the messy Afghanistan withdrawal abroad.
The House is coming back from its recess and convening late Monday afternoon to vote on a rule that will set the procedural parameters for debate and passage of three pieces of legislation: the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, the budget resolution that will serve as the blueprint for Democrats $3.5 trillion budget package, and a bill to restore the Voting Rights Act named for late Rep. John Lewis.
But the group, led by Rep. Josh Gottheimer, the chair of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, is taking a firm position that they want to pass the infrastructure bill first. The lawmakers are threatening to vote against the budget package, which could also potentially jeopardize the chances of the rule to allow the House to move forward with floor debate and eventual passage.
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"Time kills deals. This is an old business saying and the essence of why we are pushing to get the bipartisan infrastructure bill through Congress and immediately to President Biden's desk – as the president himself requested the day after it passed the Senate," the group wrote in a Sunday night Washington Post op-ed, arguing that the House can "walk and chew gum at the same time."
"We are firmly opposed to holding the president's infrastructure legislation hostage to reconciliation, risking its passage and the bipartisan support behind it," the group went on to say.
In a Monday morning appearance on CNN, however, Gottheimer expressed confidence that both the measures would get passed.
"I believe both will move forward and get done," he said, adding "I don't think anyone is going to vote against that," of the bipartisan infrastructure bill.
The $3.5 trillion budget plan is set to include funding for measures combatting climate change and "human infrastructure," like childcare, education, and home care services, that didn't make it into the bipartisan infrastructure deal.
The budget resolution, which the Senate passed on August 11, essentially gives relevant committees the greenlight to draft the legislation itself. The Senate can pass the budget solely along party lines via budget reconciliation.
Pelosi has consistently stated that the House wouldn't take up the infrastructure bill until the Senate also passes the big budget bill. Her stance made passing the narrower bipartisan infrastructure bill more palatable to progressives but raised alarms with moderates who want to get infrastructure enacted into law and are uncomfortable with the $3.5 trillion price tag.
"Across this country, far too many communities are struggling with crumbling roads and structurally unsound bridges, outrageous congestion, lead-coated pipes and no broadband access," the House Democratic moderates wrote." You don't hold up a major priority of the country, and millions of jobs, as some form of leverage. The infrastructure bill is not a political football."
With the smallest of margins in her caucus, Pelosi has little room for error. A failure to pass the rule to allow these bills to move forward could, at least temporarily, derail the passage of all three bills. But, as Punchbowl News noted, Pelosi is a master at controlling her caucus and has come out on the winning side of many intraparty fights before.
As Politico also reported, other key Democratic caucuses and the House Democrats' campaign arm are exerting both private and public pressure on the moderates to get in line.
Outside groups are also coalescing around both sides of the situation, with progressive groups like Justice Democrats blasting the nine Democrats in new ads while the Chamber of Commerce rallies behind "the mod squad."
-Justice Democrats (@justicedems) August 23, 2021