The Archive

THE TOP

Happy Thursday morning.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer isn’t giving any sign yet on when he hopes to begin debate on the massive $740 billion reconciliation package. Democratic senators and senior aides say the package is still undergoing a “Byrd bath” from Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, with the Finance Committee scheduled to submit its portion of the energy provisions for review today. Other panels did the same on Wednesday.

There’s no deadline for when MacDonough has to issue guidance, yet there’s also enormous pressure from Democratic leaders to finish the Byrd Rule scrub as soon as possible.

Schumer has scheduled two votes for 1:45 p.m. today. Normally, senators would head home for the weekend after that, especially in an election year, but Schumer hasn’t given any indication what the outlook is for a weekend vote-a-rama. Republicans have told us some of their senators want to leave town if possible, although they’re waiting to see what Schumer announces.

→	Now, let’s talk about the “Sinema Sweepstakes.”

The Arizona Democrat is the pivotal vote on Democrats’ reconciliation package, which came out of closely held talks between Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). And so far, Sinema hasn’t said whether she’s going to back the proposal or not.

Sources close to Sinema said she was “blindsided” by the Manchin-Schumer deal. Manchin and Sinema met on the floor for about 10 minutes on Tuesday, a conversation watched intently by reporters sitting in the gallery above. Schumer hasn’t wanted to discuss his interaction with Sinema this week, telling reporters that “We’re in touch with Sen. Sinema… I’m very hopeful. We’re all going to stay united and pass this bill.”

Sinema is currently seeking several changes to the bill, according to senators and media reports. Sinema wants to scale back a provision on “carried interest” that’s designed to raise as much as $14 billion from private equity and hedge fund managers. Sinema is also seeking some changes to the corporate minimum tax structure and wants $5 billion in additional drought resiliency funding (as does every western senator).

This all begs an important question: Why wasn’t Sinema involved in cutting the deal? Schumer and Manchin have made clear that these negotiations were kept very private. Sinema and Manchin – referred to as “Sinemanchin” for a big part of this Congress – have been the two hardest to get to yes on bills crafted by the Democratic leadership and White House.

So why would Schumer ever cut a deal that she wasn’t a part of? The fact is that Sinema has gripes that are predictable, and the substance of her gripes are likewise predictable. Sinema hasn’t offered any complaints about being left out of the discussions, yet not including her clearly could cause problems on the other side.

Sinema has long said that her focus was on making sure that any policies adopted by Democrats don’t worsen inflation, and she’s made clear that dealing with climate change a major priority.

Democrats noted privately that Sinema was consulted extensively on major portions of this package, including the Medicare prescription drug pricing negotiations, during previous rounds of talks. That was until Schumer and Manchin did this final deal. Sinema also supported a corporate minimum tax last year, the key tax provision in this package.

We tried to suss out what rank-and-file Democrats thought about the wisdom of leaving Sinema out of this latest round of negotiations. Here’s what they said.

→	Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.): “You’ll have to ask her about anything related to her.”

→

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.): “I think we’re gonna come to a product that we can all support this week. I’m not much for conducting negotiations out in the open. I think Sen. Sinema is gonna take a look at this bill and come to a conclusion as to whether she can support it or whether she needs changes. I’m of the mind we will all be on the same page when we get to this weekend.”

Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.): “Did they bring in Dick Blumenthal? Did they bring in Patty Murray? Part of this deal is we’re all gonna analyze it. I still haven’t made up my mind what I’m gonna do. I haven’t had a chance to fully analyze the Inflation Reduction Act. But I will, and we’ll go from there.”

Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii): “I am hopeful that all the items in the reconciliation bill, my understanding is, there are things that she has supported in the past. So I hope that’s good enough for her.”

Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.): “I think [Schumer] has done great work to get us to where we are. I don’t know anyone else who could’ve gotten us to this point.”

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.): “I’m not gonna second guess Schumer on this.”

And what about Bernie?

We’re also keeping an eye on Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who has expressed deep reservations about the Schumer-Manchin deal. No Democrat really believes Sanders is going to vote against this bill in the end, but he’s clearly not happy either. Sanders has already said he’s going to offer amendments to the reconciliation package.

Sanders has gone to the Senate floor each of the last two days to lambaste the “so-called Inflation Reduction Act.” On Tuesday, Sanders talked about how much better the Build Back Better Act was than this latest proposal.

On Wednesday, Sanders basically gave a “Good news, bad news” speech when discussing the current legislation’s impact on working-class Americans. The bill helps with prescription drug costs, but not enough. It helps with health care, but not enough. And on climate change, Sanders read a letter from the Center for Biological Diversity that called the bill “a climate suicide pact.” Yeah.

Here’s what Sanders told Bres last night following his speech:

Needless to say, the proposal that Manchin and Schumer crafted isn’t anywhere close to the bill Sanders would have drafted. And Sanders-drafted amendments could put some of his Democratic colleagues in a tough spot. But this is a good illustration of the challenges Schumer faces in straddling the two poles in his caucus.

– Jake Sherman, John Bresnahan and Max Cohen

---