Airport Alert: House Sets Late September Target Date for Infrastructure Vote, but Uncertainty Remains
August 24, 2021
The House of Representatives briefly returned this week from its summer recess to settle on a path forward on infrastructure. Today, after weeks of party infighting between Democratic moderates and progressives, the House passed a "rule" that "deems and passes" the $3.5 trillion budget resolution, while also creating a late September deadline for the House to vote on the Senate-passed bipartisan infrastructure bill (BIB).
For months, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has been unyielding in her position that she will not hold a vote on the infrastructure package until the more costly budget reconciliation bill is ready to be voted on; however, this strategy was almost upended. Led by Representative Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), a group of 10 moderates demanded that the House immediately consider and approve the Senate-passed BIB by threatening their support for the budget resolution unless the BIB was brought to the floor at the same time. With only a four-seat majority to contend with, the Speaker was forced to compromise with these demands from moderates, settling on a firmer timeline of September 27 as the date the House will consider the BIB if it hasn't already acted on the bill before then.
With the budget resolution now passed, the relevant House and Senate committees can begin assembling the reconciliation package over the next few weeks. The committees have a target date of September 15 to produce their portion of the package, which would then be bundled together by the Budget Committees for House and Senate floor debates as a single, colossal bill. However, there are a number of hurdles that could cause Congressional Democrats to miss this aspirational September 15 date. In addition to the difficulty of writing such an enormous piece of legislation so quickly, Congress will have to deal with both government funding and the debt ceiling by the end of next month. There is the added problem that moderate Democrats in the Senate, Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), whose votes are essential for Democrats to pass the partisan budget package, have both expressed opposition to the $3.5 trillion price tag. Given all of these challenges, it's possible the Senate will not have a reconciliation bill ready by the end of September, meaning the September 27 target date for the BIB vote in the House could delink the two-track process by potentially sending the BIB to President Biden's desk first to be signed into law.
On the other hand, Progressive Democrats such as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) have already said that regardless of the September 27 deadline for the BIB vote, they will withhold their support for the infrastructure bill unless the reconciliation package is passed at the same time. In this case, it is possible that there would be enough House Republican support for the BIB to offset any lost support among House progressives, but this is far from a certainty. Either way, Speaker Pelosi continues to reiterate her goal of passing both the BIB and reconciliation package before October 1, meaning she can afford no mistakes as herself and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) try to navigate these bills across the finish line. We will continue to monitor action in the House and Senate closely and provide updates as they occur.
