Indivisibles,

Here’s the deal. Later today or early tomorrow, the Senate will take a final vote on the long-awaited bipartisan infrastructure bill.

This has frankly been a long, messy, complicated process, and there are a lot of moving pieces, so I want to break down what’s happening.

For the last several months, Congress has been working towards the passage of two related pieces of legislation: a Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework (BIF) and a bigger, party-line reconciliation package (building off Biden’s Build Back Better plan). The second package is very, very important, because it’s the vehicle where Democrats plan to put huge parts of their governing agenda -- everything from crucial climate change provisions to a pathway to citizenship to paid leave and child care to Medicare expansion.

The Biden team’s basic idea is: We’ll reach an agreement with Republicans on the things they can agree on (roads and bridges) and then we’ll pass everything else via reconciliation, which doesn’t require any Republican votes.

Now, there were always a couple of different problems with this plan.

The first problem is substantive: Reconciliation is a limited tool. It can only be used for legislation that is related to the federal budget. That means that really crucial stuff (like, for example, VOTING RIGHTS) can’t pass via reconciliation.

The second problem is strategic: Republicans aren’t agreeing to this BIF package because they just love roads and bridges. Mitch McConnell doesn’t sign off on a deal like this out of the goodness of his heart. He’s not trying to pass legislation; he’s trying to win over Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin by giving them a bipartisan victory that they can point to as proof that bipartisanship “works” and trying to deflate moderate Democrats’ appetite for more spending before they get to most of the critical progressive investments.

In short: McConnell is giving Republicans the green light to accept this deal because he thinks it makes Sinema and Manchin less likely to support an ambitious reconciliation package or rules reform. Meanwhile, Biden and Democratic leadership are trying to move this deal because they think it makes Sinema and Manchin more likely to support an ambitious reconciliation package.

These two theories cannot both be true. Someone is going to get screwed here.

That’s why what happens next is so crucial.

After passing the Senate, the BIF goes to the House. And our friends in the Congressional Progressive Caucus have made clear that they will not be voting for the BIF unless it’s accompanied by a bold reconciliation bill. That means the path to passing the BIF depends on also passing our progressive priorities through reconciliation.

This is very, very important: House Progressives, if they hold together, can demand these two bills stay linked. That’s the power of progressive organizing.

What does that bold bill look like? Well, we can look to the Senate Budget Resolution, which just came out today, to see where we’ll start. Due to some pretty incredible organizing, every single one of the priorities the CPC outlined back in April is in the package as of right now -- expanding Medicare, lowering drug prices, major investments in addressing climate change, a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants, paid leave, and big investments in affordable housing and child care.

The fight is far from over. It’ll be important to continue pushing to ensure each of these are funded for success, rather than slashed by penny-pinching conservative Democrats.

But the point is, none of this would have happened without progressive champions organizing in the Senate and House. And it’s crucial that we back them up (check out this August recess resource for more on how to do that). The bottom line is: a bipartisan infrastructure package is woefully insufficient on its own. We elected Democrats to deliver on so much more, and we need to see them do it.

In solidarity,
Leah Greenberg
Co-Executive Director, Indivisible