House Budget Committee Chairman Nancy Pelosi said Sunday that the bipartisan plan allows the House to vote on the proposed infrastructure bill when the house votes on Sept. 27, but that House Speaker John Yarmuth could end up delaying it even if it passes.
In August, Pelosi said she would vote to pass the infrastructure bill on that date, but had previously said she would not hold a vote on it until after the Senate voted on a $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill. According to Fox News Sunday, when asked whether the House would actually hold a vote next week, Yarmuth admitted that the answer may not be straightforward.
SEN. $3.5 T PACKAGE: NO WAY The only answer that I can give you is that that is the current plan, the vote on the infrastructure bill on Sept 27, Yarmuth said. Now, there's some more qualifications to that. Under the rules, the speaker does not actually have to advance the bill if we pass it in the House does not actually need to send it to the President for signature. She can hold on to that bill for a while. There's some flexibility in terms of how we mesh the two mandates, he continued. One of them is to pass on that on the 27th, the second is to not vote one without the other. Some Democrats in Congress, such as New York Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman, threatened to vote against the infrastructure bill if it takes place without the reconciliation bill passing first.
Currently, Democrats appear to be lacking sufficient votes in the Senate to pass the reconciliation package, which only requires a simple majority all 50 Democrats plus Vice President Kamala Harris as the tie-breaker to pass. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va. and Kyrsten Sinema, R-Ariz. have both publicly opposed it, but President Biden met with each of them to discuss the matter.