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PRESENTED BY

BY JOHN BRESNAHAN, ANNA PALMER AND JAKE SHERMAN
WITH MAX COHEN AND CHRISTIAN HALL

THE TOP

Happy Friday morning. If you’re just tuning in, here’s a quick rundown of what you missed: The House once again punted a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill, bowing to progressives who demanded more commitments from Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) on what they’d support in a reconciliation package before agreeing to support the public works legislation.

It was a blow to House moderates who cut a deal with Speaker Nancy Pelosi to hold the vote Sept. 27. 

It’s tempting to say that Thursday was a bust. House members (and we) hung around the Capitol for 17 hours, waiting for a vote that never happened.

But there was huge upside in yesterday’s failure for Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and, most importantly, a White House that’s now waded fully into the tricky, rough-and-tumble politics of the House Democratic Caucus.

How the dynamics have shifted

1) The White House is now in the game. Put your hands together for the Biden administration, which is now truly working to bridge the gap between the progressive House Democrats and Sinemanchin. Brian Deese, the director of the National Economic Council, and Susan Rice, Biden’s domestic policy adviser, were in the Capitol along with Shuwanza Goff, a key member of the legislative affairs team with a deep history in House Democratic leadership, trying to craft a framework that Sinema, Manchin, the Congressional Progressive Caucus and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) can agree on.

A framework, of course, might not be enough. Progressives want the Senate to vote on reconciliation before the House votes on infrastructure, but more on that in a minute. 

2) Progressives now know where Manchin is. Thanks to our pal Burgess Everett of Politico, everyone now understands that Manchin wants a $1.5 trillion reconciliation bill. This is dramatically smaller than progressives have envisioned, however, so that’s a huge problem. And Sinema’s position still isn’t clear.

3) There are a lot of principals now. Given the incredibly tight Democratic margins in both chambers, every single House and Senate Democrat holds roughly equal sway over the reconciliation and infrastructure bill.

Why both sides have something to hang their hat on

Thursday began with House moderates begging for an infrastructure vote, and progressives vowing to defeat the bill on the floor. Clearly progressives got the best of the mods yesterday. But there was plenty for the various Democratic factions to be encouraged about as they head into today’s session.

Progressives: It’s fair to say that progressive Democrats are moving with new urgency. They’re definitely not going to just give into Pelosi and the rest of the House Democratic Caucus — that’s important for the group. The 96-member CPC stuck together and showed just how much influence it does have. But progressives also found out yesterday that they have a lot more compromising to do, considering that they are about $2 trillion away from Manchin’s top line. And there is still confusion about what Sinema will accept, as we noted.

Moderates: Hate to say it, but we predicted this situation in August. There was never a doubt that the moderates’ deal for a Sept. 27 infrastructure vote emboldened progressives and shifted the balance of power inside the broader House Democratic caucus. That deal was worth zip. Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) even went on CNN Thursday and said he was “1,000 percent” certain that there would be a House vote, boldly proclaiming the infrastructure bill would pass Thursday night. Womp womp.

But give the moderates this: Thursday’s events forced all parties to the table. And there’s something to that. Everyone’s cards are face up now, and that’s a step toward ultimately advancing Biden’s agenda. 

The White House: To quote the Grateful Dead, the White House woke up to find out that they are the Eyes of the World. They find themselves in the middle of the negotiations now, and it’s where they belong. Now the entire White House can see what Pelosi has been dealing with first hand. 

Pelosi: Pelosi told us Thursday that she planned to have an infrastructure vote and in the end, that didn’t happen. We’ve argued for days that not having an infrastructure vote wasn’t a big deal because there really is no hard timeline for action here. It took Democrats 10 months to pass Obamacare with massive majorities. But step back and think about what Pelosi did for a moment. The moderates wanted Pelosi to bring the infrastructure bill to the floor, and although she didn’t, the California Democrat showed them that she worked really hard on their behalf to forge a reconciliation agreement they can back. Progressives wanted Pelosi to delay the vote — and she did, angering the moderates. So Pelosi played both sides off of each other here despite falling short on her word to bring up a vote by Sept. 27.

HOW YOU’LL KNOW THERE’S A DEAL

What to watch for in the days ahead

OK, so what now? What should you look for going forward?

1) The Framework. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the White House, Schumer and Sinemanchin are now negotiating on a framework to present to the House Democratic Caucus. Pelosi has a big sales job ahead of her because progressives want a Senate vote on the entire reconciliation package before they agree to vote for the infrastructure bill. But once the reconciliation framework is released, it will be on Pelosi to bring it to the caucus and say that it’s time to move forward on the separate infrastructure bill. Legislative text will take days or even weeks to complete. So the leadership might say that a framework is a better option.

2) The President. President Joe Biden will have to make a public statement embracing the framework. The president has gotten off scot free over the last few weeks. Biden has not said that he wants infrastructure to pass before reconciliation, and he’s largely deferred to Pelosi process-wise. That’s been a frustration over that approach inside the House Democratic leadership, to say the least. So the House will be looking to Biden here to embrace this framework. 

3) The Speaker. Pelosi, as we said above, has to sell this thing. She’ll call a caucus meeting and say it’s time to deliver for the president once the deal is put together. Her persuasive powers have been proven over and over again, so there’s no point in repeating that again. 

4) The Presidential Visit. Biden spent much of the 2020 campaign talking about how he knew the Capitol and the legislative process better than anyone. The leadership is going to want Biden to come to the Capitol to tell the House Democratic Caucus that it’s time to deliver for him. With poll numbers hanging out in the 40s, Democrats should want to deliver Biden a victory. But Biden won’t come unless a deal is really close.

5) Sinemanchin will endorse it. There will have to be a public endorsement of any reconciliation package by Sinema and Manchin — as well as all other Senate Democrats.

Immediate questions for the leadership

→ Do they keep the House here? There’s clearly a bit of momentum here, so does the leadership try to take advantage of that? There are no floor votes scheduled for the next two weeks — but that’s likely to change given the Oct. 18 debt limit deadline. And it’s never great to send the House home in the midst of an internal squabble. Changing the House schedule will provide a huge jolt to the bicameral Democratic negotiations with the White House. But having a bunch of members hanging around, nervously waiting for some miraculous accord to be reached by negotiators, also isn’t great either. Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer will have to figure this out today.

→ Debt limit. Hello, the debt limit will be reached in 17 days and there’s still no plan on how to raise it. Financial markets are starting to get agitated. How much will that impact the process? If Democrats decide to use reconciliation to raise the debt limit — partly leaders insist that isn’t a viable option, but we don’t think they have much of a choice here — they’ll need to begin that process very soon. How much does that interfere with the rest of the agenda?

→ Republicans. There is some House GOP support for the bipartisan infrastructure bill. A Democratic agreement on the reconciliation package will threaten that. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy will be able to argue that Democratic claims that the two bills are separate has clearly been exposed as not true by everything that happened on Thursday. So any Democratic deal on reconciliation jeopardizes whatever little support they have for the infrastructure bill.

SENATE REPUBLICANS STEW

G10 to House: Come on!

Remember Infrastructure Summer, when 19 Senate Republicans voted yes on the bipartisan deal negotiated by the G10? Well, we do. It was certainly a simpler, happier time.

The Senate Republicans who helped painstakingly steer that bill to a 69-vote victory certainly remember. And these Republicans were not happy when we caught up with them Thursday that their legislation was being stalled in the House.

“It is a big missed opportunity,” Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), co-leader of the bipartisan group, said. “This is good for the country. It is exactly what we ought to be doing around here. It’s a good bill that was done in a bipartisan manner. We would all like it to pass.”

“I’m disappointed,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) added. “It seems to me it would have been best if the House had voted immediately after we passed it here in the Senate with a strong bipartisan vote.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) also said she was “disappointed”  — while still expressing hope that the House might pass just the measure on Thursday. A late night with no vote meant that was not the case.

The doom and gloom among the Republican contingent of the G10 is a far cry from the delight of Aug. 10, when the bipartisan deal sailed through the Senate by a 60-39 margin. At the time, the bill’s passage in an evenly divided Senate was seen as a huge achievement and practically guaranteed it would end up on President Joe Biden’s desk soon. Heck, even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell voted for it. 

But now, the House and the two-track leadership backed by Democratic leadership is posing a stark challenge to the BIF’s chances of being signed into law. 

Some optimism, at least, came from Democrats involved in the deal. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), a member of the bipartisan group, put her faith in Speaker Nancy Pelosi to ultimately pass both infrastructure and reconciliation. 

“I’m not going to second guess the speaker,” Shaheen said. “I think we need to continue negotiating the reconciliation bill so we can get both of them done.”

— Max Cohen

FRONTS

Dems in dynamism! 

MOMENTS

9:30 a.m.: President Joe Biden will receive his intelligence briefing.

11 a.m.: The Covid-19 team will brief.

1 p.m.: Jen Psaki will brief.

CLIP FILE

NYT

→ “Manchin, a key Democratic holdout, deepens the party’s impasse on Biden’s agenda,” by Emily Cochrane

→ “Trump Server Mystery Produces Fresh Conflict,” by Charlie Savage and Adam Goldman

 WaPo

→ “DHS issues new arrest and deportation guidelines to immigration agents,” by Maria Sacchetti

→ “Lawsuit seeks to halt Biden’s vaccination mandates for federal workforce,” by Paul Duggan and Alex Horton

WSJ

→ “Supreme Court to Settle Ted Cruz Fight With FEC Over Loan Reimbursement,” by Brent Kendall

AP

→ “N. Korea says 4th new test-firing was anti-aircraft missile,” by Hyung-Jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea

→ “Nation’s most restrictive abortion law back in Texas court,” by Paul J. Weber in Austin, Texas

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