President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats will have to wait until 2022 to try to pass their much-touted Build Back Better plan and a voting overhaul bill despite efforts to pass both before Christmas.
The two top agenda items fell victim to discord within the Democratic caucus.
Sen. Joe Manchin, of West Virginia centrist, played the Grinch on Build Back Better, refusing to provide his support for the $1.75 trillion social welfare and green energy spending bill.
Democrats also struggled to find a last-ditch agreement within their own party to either eliminate the 60-vote threshold or create an exception in order to pass legislation that would have blocked red-state voter integrity laws, weakened voter I.D. requirements, and expanded federal oversight of local elections.
Manchin and fellow centrist Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona were among Democrats hesitant to end or modify the decades-old filibuster.
Downtrodden Democrats acknowledged the reality of their gridlocked agenda on Friday as many Republican senators, seeing no chance for legislation to make it to the floor, headed for the Capitol exits.
“Better delay than defeat,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, said about the postponed consideration of Build Back Better.
Democrats knew Manchin would have likely voted against the bill if Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had heeded the calls from some in his party to put the measure on the floor and up the pressure on Manchin in that manner.
“The indications are it would be defeated,” Blumenthal told reporters in the Capitol on Friday. “Better to delay it and continue to work with hope that there actually will be progress, and it will enable us to get it finished.”
Earlier this week, as negotiations between Schumer, Biden, and Manchin dragged on, Democrats decided to pivot to passing voter overhaul legislation, calling the matter “urgent.”
Senate Republicans have blocked several attempts by Democrats to pass the legislation, and the party decided to try to get a last-minute agreement within the caucus to change the Senate rules so that only 51 votes would be needed to pass the bill instead of the usual 60 votes.
Even though Manchin was among the authors of one of the voting overhaul measures, he said he was reluctant to change the Senate rules when Republicans would at some point be back in the majority and could use the rules change to jam through their own agenda.
Sinema also refused to back a plan to eliminate the filibuster.
Democrats huddled Friday to discuss the history of the filibuster and their desire to eliminate it in order to end Republican obstruction of their agenda.
“I feel really good about the conversation we’re having right now,” said Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Georgia Democrat leading the effort to pass voter overhaul legislation. “We are moving in the right direction.”
Schumer, of New York, acknowledged Friday that the Senate would not take up the measure ahead of Christmas.
“The president requested more time to continue his negotiations, and so we will keep working with him hand in hand to bring this bill over the finish line and deliver on these much-needed provisions,” Schumer said.
Democrats received more bad news Thursday about the spending bill.
Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled out including a $10 billion plan to legalize millions of workers living in the United States illegally. It’s the third provision she’s rejected from Democrats who hoped to provide a pathway to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants by hitching it onto the Build Back Better bill.
Democrats remained in session Friday attempting to move through a pre-Christmas set of executive and judicial nominees but had to slow the process to a crawl thanks to objections from Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican. Cruz and Schumer were exchanging counteroffers Friday afternoon in a bid to strike a deal that would allow the chamber to pass the whole list en bloc.
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Many Republicans, seeing the agenda fizzle and nothing left to vote on but nominations destined to pass with a simple Democratic majority, headed out of the Capitol to begin the Christmas break.
“I think Schumer wanted to be here today and want to keep people here today,” said Senate Minority Whip John Thune, a South Dakota Republican. “I think that’s starting to wane on their side. A lot of them realize now that they are being held here to vote on nominations, and a lot of Republican members are hitting the exits.”
