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The Gottheimer Gang's Pointless Standoff

Conservative Democrats got a guarantee that the House would vote on the
infrastructure bill by late September. But that changes nothing about
the process.

 

The problem for the Gottheimer gang is they simply don't have the same
number of tools as the Speaker of the House in determining the
sequencing of votes. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)

 

****

**** Given the Senate's filibuster rules and its 50-50 split,
congressional observers are conditioned to believe that all choke points
on legislation originate in the Senate, and that Joe Manchin and Kyrsten
Sinema are the most powerful people in Washington. But as I wrote last
month
,
House Democrats have only three votes to spare, and a wide ideological
range within the caucus. Their most conservative members (or their most
progressive members, for that matter) could easily stir up trouble and
put President Biden's agenda in peril.

We have recent history of this. The House ultimately proved the heavier
lift than the Senate on the Affordable Care Act in 2010, despite having
a much larger Democratic majority than it does today. A handful of
conservative Democrats refused to move forward on passage without
forcing in language requiring separate, nongovernmental funding for
abortion services. A determined coalition, even if small, can get its
way, even over the wily Nancy Pelosi.

But that presumes a degree of competence among the hostage takers
that's been nowhere in evidence in recent weeks. You can have the
votes, and still not have the savvy of how to use that leverage.

Here's the story: After Senate passage of the Infrastructure
Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), the bipartisan bill adding $550 billion
in new spending for physical infrastructure projects, a group of nine
moderates led by Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) insisted

that they would need a vote on that bill first before agreeing to move
forward a budget resolution that would unlock a $3.5 trillion
reconciliation bill involving a host of other public investments. This
put a crimp in Pelosi's plans, backed up by a large segment of her
caucus (not just progressives), to only pass the IIJA

**after** the Senate hands over the reconciliation bill, therefore
giving both the progs and the mods a stake in both bills passing.

Pelosi knew that the path of least resistance involved flipping the
Gottheimer Nine, rather than winning concessions from the much larger
segment of progressives and liberal Democrats. First, she tried to
bulldoze through them
,
assuming that the conservative Dems would cave. She lined up a vote on a
multipart rule that set the conditions for debate on legislation, by
bundling the budget resolution and the IIJA together. This would have
allowed Gottheimer's gang to say they got their vote, without changing
the dynamics. That was the strategy right up until Monday, the scheduled
day of the rule vote. Over the weekend, the

**Prospect** was hearing that some of the nine members were going
wobbly, but they all reaffirmed their stance in a Washington Post op-ed
.
A bundled rule or even a rule that "deemed" the budget resolution
passed, so Gottheimer and company wouldn't have to vote separately on
that, wasn't going to be enough.

**Read all of our infrastructure coverage here**

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The leadership then tried shaming
the Gottheimer gang. They
tried using the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee
,
the House campaign arm, to warn members that they could be cut off from
donations. They reportedly threatened
to break
up one member's turf through redistricting and to get another
member's relative, a White House staffer, fired. They had Biden, who
supports Pelosi's two-track strategy, call members. A tense caucus
meeting
,
featuring a healthy degree of cursing, didn't resolve the standoff
either.

Let's be clear that the Gottheimer gang has given no policy reason for
why IIJA is so urgent. Given how appropriations work, no money would be
spent out of the infrastructure package until October anyway. As well,
states are currently holding $350 billion from the American Rescue Plan,
some of which can go toward the very broadband and water system
investments in the IIJA. And finally, infrastructure projects take a
long time even just to break ground; passing the bill now or in a couple
months' time wasn't going to speed up any ribbon-cutting ceremonies.

The real but unspoken reason the Gottheimer Nine (which became ten on
Monday when Florida's Stephanie Murphy joined the club
)
wanted the IIJA passed first is that they wanted to direct the path of
the $3.5 trillion package, which some of them outright oppose
.
If the infrastructure bill, which they favor, was put to bed, then they
could make demands to water down the reconciliation bill's tax
increases on the rich, or ensure that it includes repeal of the state
and local tax deduction cap
.
By delinking the two bills, Gottheimer's gang could gain leverage over
both.

The problem for the Gottheimer gang is they simply don't have the same
number of tools as the Speaker of the House in determining the
sequencing of votes. The procedural rule on the budget resolution and
the infrastructure bill was therefore a silly place to make a stand.
When it became clear that Pelosi wouldn't give them an IIJA vote
first, they bargained for a "date certain" to pass it. After a fruitless
night of negotiations, on Tuesday the date certain was settled

as September 27. At first, the language was completely nonbinding,
executing a "sense of the House" resolution that the IIJA would be
considered. Gottheimer balked and got a somewhat stronger guarantee
, with
language that the House "shall" consider IIJA by September 27. The rule
advanced Tuesday afternoon by a 220-212 count, with all Democrats in
favor.
 
But even this isn't a guarantee that the infrastructure bill will
pass. First, House Democrats who want to maintain the original two-track
timeline can simply vote down the infrastructure bill

if they feel reconciliation isn't trending in their direction; I doubt
that there are enough Republicans willing to defy Donald Trump and pass
the infrastructure bill to offset liberal Democrats. Second, House
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chair Peter DeFazio (D-OR),
who will handle the IIJA, can simply write a manager's amendment
changing any aspect of the bill, therefore moving the House and Senate
into a conference to reconcile the two versions, further delaying final
passage and creating more time for reconciliation to catch up. He could
do that by changing a comma.

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Third, as Paul Waldman and Greg Sargent explained
,
even if the House votes for the IIJA, Pelosi doesn't have to send it
to the president's desk right away. The timing of when that bill goes
forward is at her discretion, meaning that it's within her power to
hold off on sending the infrastructure bill along until the
reconciliation package is complete. Experts in congressional procedure
have verified this, and Pelosi herself did a version of it earlier this
year, when she held off for a few days on sending impeachment articles
to the Senate.

Indeed, House and Senate leaders are probably happy that they have a
deadline now for the sprawling reconciliation bill, which would
theoretically need to be ironed out and agreed to by September 27 to get
done before the mandatory vote on IIJA. Previously, there wasn't much
specificity to the calendar, just a soft deadline sometime in September
to get things done. Pelosi had stated a preference
to finish matters by October
1. Now, with the September 27 deadline for an IIJA vote, Pelosi and
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) can put pressure on their
members to resolve their differences on what's in the reconciliation
bill and move things forward. And even if they don't quite hit the
deadline, if there's enough progress, Pelosi has tools to keep the
two-track process on, well, track.

In other words, Gottheimer and his pals identified themselves as the
main impediment to the Biden agenda, drew the attention of donors and
activists, ludicrously compared themselves to Abraham Lincoln
, and all
they got out of it was a "date certain" that's not really much of a
date certain. It was an embarrassing and fairly pointless detour.

All that said, this is a whole lot of infighting over just the

**process** for what, at $3.5 trillion, is perhaps the largest
legislative package in the history of the United States. We haven't
gotten one specific policy nailed down yet. There's a ton of momentum
to get something done, because Democrats know that redistricting will
narrow their window to keep a House majority, and that their only path
to keeping it lies with delivering for the American people. But the same
House group kicking and screaming about the sequencing is wary of the
$3.5 trillion price tag
;
Sinema, in the Senate, reiterated that yesterday
.
Reportedly, Sinema and Manchin, who has also expressed concern

with the reconciliation bill, were advising the Gottheimer gang
.

So there's a long way to go, and a non-zero chance it all blows up,
despite everyone recognizing that their political fates are tied to a
successful outcome. Next time, the holdouts might have a better hand to
play.

 

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