Opinion | Bipartisanship's last gasp in 2021 - The Washington Post

The never-ending saga of the bipartisan infrastructure bill is nearing that moment in the drama when you think all is lost, except unlike in the movies, victory will not necessarily be rescued from the jaws of defeat. But if you think it’s hard to get an agreement between the parties on this one, just wait until it’s over.

Negotiations between Senate Democrats and Republicans over a roughly $1 trillion infrastructure package appeared to be in political jeopardy on Monday, as lawmakers continued to feud publicly over how to dole out the money and finance the new federal spending.

The impasse arrives after lawmakers toiled away into the weekend over their proposal to improve the nation’s roads, bridges, pipes, ports and Internet connections. Republicans including Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah initially hoped to finalize a more robust blueprint as soon as Monday so that the long-stalled debate could finally start, but the prospect now seems unlikely given the sheer scope of policy obstacles that negotiators must resolve.

Whenever Congress works through a complicated bill there’s plenty of disagreement and negotiation. But lawmakers have been laboring over this bill for a while, and every time someone says they’ve almost arrived at a compromise it turns out there are many more questions to be resolved.

Furthermore, there’s a very particular context to these negotiations, which is that whether or not this bill passes, Democrats will follow it with a reconciliation bill soon afterward. That changes everything — and it’s the last time it will happen this year.

The current bill may be “bipartisan,” but it’s also going to be filibustered by the Republicans, which is why it needs 10 Republican votes to pass. But if it should fail to get those votes and fall to the GOP filibuster, Democrats have another option: They can take everything in this infrastructure bill that they like and fold it into their reconciliation bill, which can pass with a simple majority.

That gives Republicans plenty of incentive to keep negotiating. If you were a conservative with a desire to shape funding for, say, mass transit for the next few years, this is your chance; if you walk away, Democrats will make those decisions on their own.

But once we’re past this reconciliation bill, that won’t be the case on other legislation this year. At that point, Republicans will regain the sweeping veto power the filibuster gives them, so long as all Democrats don’t agree to reform the filibuster (and right now a couple of them remain stubborn on that point). In almost every case that will mean two things. First, Republicans would get a substantive victory by maintaining the status quo when the alternative would be a movement in a more progressive direction. Second, they’d get a political victory: Every time a Democratic agenda item falls by the wayside, President Biden and his party will look weak and ineffectual, which among other things dampens Democratic enthusiasm for the midterm elections.

In addition, infrastructure is one of the only areas where Democrats and Republicans have something resembling shared desires and interests. Even the most doctrinaire free marketeers in Congress know their constituents don’t like crumbling roads and bursting water mains. But on other issues Democrats want to address — increasing access to health care, enhancing workers’ rights, safeguarding voting rights, addressing gun violence and so on — the sincere preference of most Republicans is that the federal government do nothing.

In fairness, we should acknowledge that from time to time, an actual bit of bipartisanship does occur even now. For instance, last month Congress passed the Training in High-demand Roles to Improve Veteran Employment (THRIVE) Act, which was so unobjectionable to both parties that neither house bothered with a roll-call vote.

It’s possible for such a bill to pass precisely because it doesn’t get much notice. When a bill is either consequential or controversial enough to get a lot of attention, the dynamic around it becomes profoundly different: The more important a bill seems, the less likely bipartisanship becomes.

If you’re a Republican considering working with Democrats on an ambitious bill, you worry you’ll find yourself attacked on Fox News and conservative talk radio for dealing with the enemy, which will mean a lot of grief at a minimum, and perhaps even a primary challenge from the right.

You’ve seen it happen before. After the 2010 midterms, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) arrived in Washington a conservative darling. But then he was part of a bipartisan “Gang of Eight” behind a comprehensive immigration bill that passed the Senate in 2013 with 68 votes. The bill died in the GOP-controlled House, conservative media excoriated Rubio as a traitor to the cause, and he never really recovered the affections of the right.

So for all those reasons — the substantive policy reasons, the political reasons, the nature of partisan politics in this media age — this infrastructure bill creates the best, and maybe only, opportunity we’ll see for meaningful bipartisanship all year. And it still might fail.

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July 27, 2021 at 02:36AM
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Opinion | Bipartisanship's last gasp in 2021 - The Washington Post
"Opinion" - Google News
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