Senate Moderates Joining With House Moderates, Imperiling Biden’s Agenda
District of Columbia | August 20, 2021
Troubles continue among congressional Democrats’ loose coalition of members as moderates in both chambers try to pull the party towards the center and progressives try to push it further left.
Recently, Democrats have squabbled over whether Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) $3.5 trillion budget resolution and the $1.2 trillion Senate-passed infrastructure bill should be considered together. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has expressed that she intends to force a vote on both bills at the same time as part of what Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) called President Joe Biden’s “two-track strategy.”
But some moderate Democrats in the House are opposed to this move. In a letter addressed to Pelosi, the nine signatories—Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), Carolyn Bordeaux (D-Ga.), Filemon Vela (D-Texas), Jared Golden (D-Maine), Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), Vincente Gonzalez (D-Texas), Ed Case (D-Hawaii), Jim Costa (D-Calif.), and Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.)—urged the speaker to consider the infrastructure bill separately from the budget resolution…. (Excerpts from the Epoch Times)