Member-only story
Pelosi Did Not Have the Votes for the Corporate, ‘Bipartisan’ Infrastructure Bill.
And it’s thanks to the progressives holding their ground.
The end of September has come and gone, and with it Pelosi and Democratic leaderships hopes of holding a vote on and passing the bipartisan, corporate infrastructure bill before the end of the month. Why wouldn’t they be anxious to do so? It literally hands public infrastructure over to private companies, and that would keep their donors happy, right? In spite of the clear, explicit, unified refusal among progressives to vote for the bill unless the broader $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill passed the Senate first, Pelosi seemed incredibly confident she would be able to hold a vote and pass the bill on Thursday, September 30th.
Well, that didn’t happen, and it’s thanks to progressives that we have now salvaged the larger reconciliation bill because of it.
It should go without saying that if the infrastructure bill passed before the reconciliation bill, the reconciliation bill would then be dead. If it wasn’t outright just thrown away, it would be stripped to an absolute shell of its former self and once Manchin and Sinema were done with it, would have none of the provisions that make it so popular among the left and the country overall in the first place. Of…
