“Slow but steady wins the race.”
So said Senate Minority Leader McConnell on Tuesday as the Senate slogged through a pile of amendments to the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Reuters says the Senate “made gradual progress” on Tuesday, and The Hill reports Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) now predicts a final vote on Saturday at the earliest -- while Punchbowl says the emerging consensus is that the final vote won’t come until “early next week.”
Said Majority Leader Schumer: “The Senate can work through amendments rather efficiently when we have cooperation between the majority and the minority, as we have had in this bipartisan legislation. It can go rather slowly, of course, without that cooperation. In either case, the Senate is going to stay here until we finish our work.”
This bill has so much positive momentum thanks to what Politico calls “the Senate’s most successful bipartisan gang in years” and as its details come into view, it is becoming more apparent to people on both sides why we desperately need it.
(Click here to see chart in greater detail.)
House Problem Solvers Caucus Co-Chair Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) said, “We believe that this bill we put together was the product of input from all parties, on all spectrums, from all corners of America. Nobody is totally in love with it, but everybody’s okay with it, and that’s the essence of compromise.”
Christopher Flavelle writes in the NYT that “the bill is remarkable” for another reason as well: “For the first time, both parties have acknowledged -- by their actions, if not their words -- that the United States is unprepared for the worsening effects of climate change.”
No one has done more to get us here than Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) -- at great political risk. The NYT says “the White House and the party leadership love Sinema…because she helped deliver a deal,” and “Republicans love her because she works closely with them. … And moderates from both parties love the way she manages to stick by her centrist convictions and still deliver results.” But progressives are not fans, “and several liberal groups have already suggested they would back a primary challenge against her” in 2024.
The legislators of both parties who have risked the wrath of their party’s bases need our support now more than ever.
Former Rep. Lynn Schenk (D-CA) writes in the San Diego Union-Tribune, “Too many of us seem willing to give up on the type of democracy our forefathers envisioned. They reward politicians who posture, demagogue and proudly proclaim they will never compromise. … Our elected officials must keep working for the public interest. Enacting the bipartisan infrastructure package is a great place to start.”