Pelosi signals she won’t move $3.5T bill without Senate-House deal
District of Columbia | September 23, 2021
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has signaled to colleagues in both chambers that she will not put the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package on the House floor for a vote until it’s clear that it can also pass the 50-50 Senate. Some Democrats are calling for the House to move as soon as possible on the package, even if two key centrist votes in the Senate, Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), haven’t yet signed off on it. Both Manchin and Sinema say they won’t support a $3.5 trillion package but haven’t publicly said how much they’re willing to spend. Pelosi has no intention of replaying what happened in 2009, when Democrats last controlled Congress and the White House and moderate House Democrats took an extremely tough vote on sweeping climate change legislation only for the bill to never come to the Senate floor. Centrists Democrats paid the price the following year when Republicans picked up 63 seats in the 2010 midterm elections — and control of the House…. (Excerpts from The Hill)