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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is facing some divisions within the Democratic caucus that would need to be unified in order to secure the passage of the $3.5 trillion budget resolution. Pelosi has urged the moderate faction of Democrats to move forward towards the budget resolution.
Pelosi is caught in a standoff with moderate Democrats since the passage of the infrastructure bill in the Senate. In a letter to her colleagues, Pelosi continues to press the moderate Democrats, who are demanding that the House first vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Nine moderate House Democrats are threatening to withhold their votes on the budget resolution unless the infrastructure bill is voted on immediately.
“Today, President Biden endorse the House Rule which will allow us to consider the budget resolution, HR4, and the bipartisan infrastructure bill next week,” said Pelosi in the letter. “The budget resolution is the key to unlocking the 51-vote privilege of the reconciliation path for our transformative Build Back Better bill.”
The standoff poses a challenge as the Democratic Party holds a slim majority in the House and has an even division in the Senate. Pelosi added that any delays in passing the budget resolution could threaten the ability to pass the legislation through budget reconciliation. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer also pressed his colleagues during a private call to vote for the infrastructure deal, the budget resolution, and the voting rights bills to move forward. Hoyer reiterated that they must pass all the proposals in order to bring forward US President Joe Biden’s agenda.
The Democrats are also tackling the issue of voting rights, which hangs in the balance due to the Republican-led bills that have been criticized as efforts to suppress votes from people and communities of color. Rep. Terri Sewell introduced Tuesday HR4, also known as the “John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2021,” which received backing from the House leadership.
While it may pass in the House, it may face trouble in the Senate due to two Democratic Senators that remain supportive of the filibuster. The new bill would reverse the Supreme Court’s recent decision in the Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee in 2021, seemingly imposed new limits on the safeguards of the Voting Rights Act against racism in elections.
