House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) broke her signed promise to moderate Democrats and pushed the $1.2 trillion “bipartisan” infrastructure vote to Thursday.
The delay is due to Democrat infighting in which Pelosi is struggling to find consensus between the far-left and more temperate Democrats, the New York Times reported.
Pelosi had a signed deal with moderate Democrats last month to bring the $1.2 trillion bill to the floor, but far-left “lawmakers have vowed not to support the infrastructure bill until Congress acts on the $3.5 trillion” package, increasing taxes and Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare funding
With the $3.5 trillion package not yet ready for a vote due to party infighting, moderate House Democrats are attempting to pass the $1.2 trillion bill without the $3.5 trillion package. The Senate passed the $1.2 trillion bill last month.
However, in an interesting twist to the infrastructure saga, two moderate Democrats are trying to convince the far-left to vote for the $1.2 trillion bill “by explicitly announcing their support for a big package targeting climate change and expanding the social safety net,” Axios reported Sunday evening.
Reps. Cori Bush (D-MO) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) rally young climate activists in Lafayette Square on the north side of the White House to demand President Joe Biden works to make the Green New Deal into law on June 28, 2021, in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Reps. Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX) and Filemon Vela (D-TX) are tempting the far-left into a vote. “We support swift passage of the president’s $3.5 trillion reconciliation package,” they wrote in a joint statement. “The bipartisan infrastructure framework would, on average, deliver $1.2 billion per congressional district.”
Yet Pelosi broke her promise and moved the vote for the $1.2 trillion bill due to fear of losing far-left Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), who maintained that through her 94-member Congressional Progressive Caucus the $1.2 trillion bill will not be passed in the House out of worry of losing leverage to pass the $3.5 trillion package.
“I don’t believe there is going to be a vote,” Jayapal said Sunday on State of the Union. “The votes aren’t there.”
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) listens as FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies during a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on Capitol Hill, June 10, 2021, in Washington, DC. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
“The speaker is an incredibly good vote counter, and she knows exactly where her caucus stands, and we’ve been really clear on that,” she added.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/breitbart/~3/C3Yi9XxFxWc/