As I write this, I don’t know whether Pelosi is bringing the bipartisan bill to the floor for a vote. I got the impression last night that the bill would not pass: i.e. that the number of Progressive Democrats voting no would considerably outnumber the number of Republicans who would vote for it. Which leads me to believe that it would fail.
MSN is saying that would be a “setback” for Biden. I don’t see it that way. It would be a setback if the bill were passed, because it would create a still more adverse balance of power between the people who want to support Biden’s agenda and those who act like they’d be willing for the largest part of that agenda to fail.
I’ve heard a few people say that Pelosi wouldn’t put the matter to a vote if she didn’t have the votes to pass it. I expect she’s smarter than that: she should recognize that she may have to demonstrate that the Democrats are hanging together to enact the combo that was agreed to by all in the budget resolution in August.
Both pieces together, was the agreement. Just the bipartisan bill now, say those whose conduct has not inspired much trust (like Manchin and especially Synema). No harm in not knuckling under and instead hanging tough. After all, being voted down once does not prevent its being brought up again when the people who have been infuriating barriers to the accomplishment the both the nation, and the Democratic Party, badly needed have finally shown a willingness to negotiate to reach a deal.
Pelosi might well decide — perfectly rationally — that the best thing to happen is for the bill to be shot down as a clear communication that this bipartisan bill is not such a big “win,” especially if that’s all that happens. That would be a clearer way of sending that message than Pelosi just not putting the matter to a vote, and simply claiming that the votes are not there.
The bill should be voted down, and the both-at-the-same-time strategy stuck to. And hope for the best.
(The big danger, consensus seems to be, is from Synema. Her conduct seems so ungrounded, if not unhinged, that it is not clear what her motives are, what she wants and, in particular, whether wherever it is she’s coming from, she might get some pleasure at earning herself a place in history by being so important in a destructive role. I.e., happy to be the person who destroyed the Biden Presidency. Which might well mean enabling the destruction of American democracy by a fascist force that’s been rising on the right for thirty years, and has lately been moving in a coherent fashion to turn our society into an authoritarian, anti-democracy, fascistic nation.
(Michele Goldberg — whom I think very smart and very perceptive — tentatively used the word “nihilistic” to describe Synema’s conduct. The great danger I see at this moment is the possibility that whatever is making Krystin Synema tick in such weird ways will turn out to be something that means she’d get off on blowing everything up.)
If Synema turns out to be sane, I expect that insisting on both together will lead to a pretty substantial Biden win with two bills passing together, even if one had to be pared down some.