Biden will meet with more than a dozen key Democrats as infrastructure and budget bills hang in the balance

Starting at 2:00 p.m. ET, the president will huddle with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Pelosi’s meeting with Biden comes as she decides whether to uphold a pledge to centrists to hold a vote on the infrastructure bill on Monday, Sept. 27.

House progressives have threatened to sink that vote if the Senate doesn’t pass their social safety net and climate policy bill by Monday.

But given the complicated rules governing a big social safety net bill (which needs to be written in the style of a budget bill), Senate Democrats see no way that they could finish crafting the bill and vote on it before Monday.

Following the Pelosi and Schumer meeting, Biden will meet with a group of moderate Democrats from the House and Senate, according to NBC News.

These moderates include Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a New Jersey Democrat who insisted that Pelosi schedule the Monday infrastructure vote. Also coming to the White House are centrist Reps. Stephanie Murphy of Florida, Suzan DelBene of Washington and Steven Horsford of Nevada.

The two most watched Democratic members of the Senate, centrist Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, will also attend this meeting, slated to start around 3:30 p.m.

Both Manchin and Sinema have taken issue with the social safety net bill’s proposed $3.5 trillion price tag. Manchin has even urged his party to wait for months to pass the bill – something that infuriates House progressives. They worry that if they vote to pass the centrists’ infrastructure bill now, without seeing the reconciliation bill pass first, then party leaders will water down the bill containing their priorities in order to win Manchin’s approval.

If either Sinema or Manchin votes against the big budget reconciliation bill, it would doom the plan.

This is likely part of the reason the president has included two more centrist Democrats in this big meeting: Sens. Jon Tester, D-Mont., and Mark Warner, D-Va.

Warner and Tester both helped to craft the bipartisan infrastructure bill with Republicans earlier this summer, and are known for their skill at negotiating different interests within the party.

Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/22/biden-will-meet-over-a-dozen-democrats-with-infrastructure-budget-bills-at-stake.html