Mitch McConnell isn’t backing down in his quest for a multiyear transportation bill, moving to tee up another key vote as soon as Wednesday, even in the face of a Democratic rebellion that stalled the bipartisan proposal mere hours after it was unveiled.
The Senate majority leader has made clear he wants to move a six-year bill fast, so the House has enough time to take up the package before the August break. McConnell (R-Ky.) even threatened a rare weekend session if the Senate doesn’t wrap up work on the bill before then.
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Democrats banded together Tuesday afternoon to vote against moving the bill forward, over concerns that lawmakers hadn’t had time to read the 1,000-page-plus proposal. Democratic staffers even circulated emails pointing out that the bill is lengthier than 2010’s Affordable Care Act.
But McConnell and other supporters of the proposal — which would fund highway and transit programs for three years — said they were undeterred and vowed to try again with another vote possible Wednesday.
“It’s a stall; we’ll all be back,” Environment and Public Works Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) predicted before the vote failed. “We’ll take another try, wait and see.”
But McConnell’s push to fund infrastructure programs well beyond the 2016 election — complete with an odd-couple pairing with liberal Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) — may end up resulting in not much more than political theater.
Congress has just 10 calendar days to send a transportation bill to the president’s desk or risk a nationwide shutdown of highway and transit construction projects as well as thousands of federal employee furloughs. And the allure of jet fumes looms large for lawmakers who have already started eyeing the monthlong August break.
And as far as House GOP leaders are concerned, they’ve already done their part — the House overwhelmingly passed a five-month funding extension earlier this month — and are pushing Senate leaders to take up their package.
Some Senate aides have started floating the idea of a two-month extension to bridge the gap and give House and Senate negotiators time to work out their differences in conference.
McConnell’s defeat on what was to be a simple procedural vote Tuesday was a significant blow to the GOP leadership, Boxer and Inhofe, who just hours before had taken to the Senate floor to announce the bipartisan deal amid much fanfare.
Neither Boxer nor McConnell contested Democrats’ claims about not being able to read the bill. Boxer even voted against the procedural motion.
But the California Democrat was clearly frustrated with Tuesday’s turn of events, especially after she and McConnell worked on an agreement all the way up until the bill was unveiled.
“It’s a highway bill. Most of it is very similar” to what the Senate EPW Committee has had public for months, Boxer said, responding to her colleagues’ concerns about not having read the text. “If we could just keep our eye on the prize.”
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Democrats are set to meet at noon Wednesday to plan their next move. McConnell needs at least 60 votes to begin debating the bill — no easy task given that nearly a dozen Republicans and every Democrat voted against allowing debate to move forward.
McConnell and Boxer, normally on opposite ends of the ideological spectrum, are working in lockstep to shore up support for their plan. And Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), a key member of minority leadership, has been an important ally, publicly defending Boxer’s hard work to bring a deal together.
But other top Democrats — including Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York — don’t seem too keen on the plan.
Reid threw cold water on the proposal during a floor speech, saying that even if it does pass the Senate, there’s not “a chance in the world they’re going to take up this bill” in the House.
In the lower chamber, Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) told POLITICO Tuesday night that he assumes House leaders “will want to stick to the plan we’ve set out.”
“Our idea all along has been a short-term bill,” said Reichert, a top Ways and Means Committee member. “This short-term, herky-jerky thing of: ‘Let’s do two years. No let’s do three and call it six’ — and some of the long-term pay-fors — people aren’t buying. They’re not going to get the votes, in my opinion.”
From the Democratic side of the aisle, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee ranking member Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) was no more optimistic about prospects for the proposal. “The Senate hasn’t even brought it up yet. And secondly, we’ve already passed the shorter-term,” DeFazio said.
And Schumer has made no secret that he’s open to the House plan — a five-month extension that would give lawmakers more time to marry an international tax revamp with a highway funding package.
Schumer even mentioned the international tax idea during a Tuesday news conference bashing GOP leadership for moving ahead with a vote on the McConnell-Boxer plan before the bill text was live.
But Senate Commerce Chairman John Thune, the No. 3 Republican leader, said it will ultimately be difficult for Democrats to turn down the opportunity to pass a multiyear transportation bill.
The South Dakota Republican hinted at rumors that the White House is pressuring Democrats to push the outcome toward a year-end patch that could provide more leverage during debate on a tax overhaul.
“I think the administration’s pushing hard to get a short-term extension on the hope that they can get tax reform, and in that context get more spending,” Thune said.
The White House has been candid about its support for the House highway patch, saying in a statement that it will give Congress more time to pull together a longer bill.
Even if Senate leaders can muster the support to overcome procedural hurdles, it won’t be smooth sailing for the transportation bill, which is already seen as an ideal target for senators wanting to force votes on unrelated, hot-button issues.
While Senate leaders want to allow debate on some germane amendments, Thune warned that they must be mindful of the time crunch and careful not to allow controversial debate to derail the bill.
“There are going to be a lot of non-germane amendments that get offered. How those get handled remains to be seen,” Thune said. “But my guess is a lot of those amendments, when they’re offered, are controversial enough that they’ll probably trigger objections from members on one side or the other. And once that happens, it could shut the place down. We’ve seen that happen in the past.”
Two of the Senate’s presidential hopefuls — Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) — have already signaled their plans to use the bill as a pawn to force votes on controversial issues. Cruz plans to offer a range of amendments dealing with everything from a full Obamacare repeal to the Iran nuclear deal.
He has also promised to stymie any efforts to renew the Export-Import Bank through the transportation bill.
And Paul wants to hold up whatever is on the Senate floor this week to try to get a vote on defunding Planned Parenthood.
House Republican leaders have mostly stayed above the fray, content to watch the drama unfold from across the Capitol. On Tuesday, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) doubled down on leadership’s stance that the Senate should just pass the House bill.
And House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) wouldn’t commit to a vote on the Senate package.
“The House passed a responsible, bipartisan highway extension last week. We will closely review the emerging agreement announced in the Senate,” said a Boehner spokeswoman. “After the Senate passes a bill, we’ll consult with our members and make decisions about the path forward.”
But McConnell hopes the House does a lot more than member consultation.
“If we can get this bill over to the House, it is my belief that they will take it up,” he said.
“Imagine the scenario if we actually were able to produce a multiyear highway bill and get it to the president’s desk for
signature before the August recess. It’s something we could all feel proud of,” McConnell said.
