House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a closed-door meeting with Democrats that her plan is to hold a vote on President Joe Biden’s economic agenda bill Thursday night, and then hold a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill Friday morning, according to two sources.
That plan could change and the situation is fluid as House Democratic leaders have already had to delay their timeline for passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill twice before.
The comments to her caucus are the latest sign of how House leadership wants to move quickly to get both of Biden’s key priorities passed in the House before the week is out.
At her weekly news conference later Thursday, Pelosi said, “We’re going to pass both bills, but in order to do so, we have to have votes for both bills, and that’s where we are.”
She would not say she had the votes yet to bring the bills to the floor. “Did you see the whip count? Because I’ll tell you something about Mr. Clyburn, he keeps it close to the vest,” Pelosi said.
House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., told reporters that he’s meeting with his staff to see if Democrats have the votes for the economic bill.
He said they wouldn’t put a bill on the floor if it didn’t have the votes.
The economic agenda bill, often referred to as the Build Back Better legislation, is a sweeping social safety net expansion plan that would address climate change, deliver aid for families, expand access to health care and enact other liberal agenda items. It would next need to be taken up and passed in the Senate.
The $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill passed out of the Senate in August, and is still awaiting a vote in the House. Passage of that bill has been held up previously as progressives insisted that the two measures move in tandem, but now progressives are signaling they are ready to vote for both pieces of legislation this week.
Still unclear if Democrats have the votes
As of Thursday afternoon, a vote had not yet been officially scheduled for the House to take up the Build Back Better Act, and it remained unclear if leadership had the votes necessary to pass the sweeping spending bill.
In one potential sign of the challenge to lock down votes, Democratic Rep. Ed Case of Hawaii, a leader of the moderate Blue Dogs, told CNN he hasn’t changed his position: There must be an official score from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office before he can vote for the $1.75 trillion economic package.
“Everything is in the letter,” he said, referring to a letter he and other moderates signed laying out their demands before considering whether to vote for the bill.
Asked if he changed his position, Case said: “No.”House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said, “I don’t think we are going to leave until we decide what we are going to do with these bills,” when asked if the chamber would stay in town this weekend if they haven’t voted yet on the two bills.
Asked if they would have the votes to pass the $1.75 trillion bill if he put that on that floor now, Hoyer said: “I don’t know that to be the case.”
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