After some changes were made to the reconciliation bill yesterday, Pelosi and Democrats are trying to ram the bill through the House today even without a CBO score.
But at least five Democrats are demanding a CBO score and 72 hours to review the bill, which would prevent the bill from passing today.
Via Fox News:
Top House Democrats are confident that they can pass their massive reconciliation spending bill Friday after major progress in their negotiations late Thursday – but a few moderate holdouts with procedural demands remain, and their votes will be key to whether Democrats can indeed get the bill through.
Reps. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., Jared Golden, D-Maine, Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., and Ed Case, D-Hawaii, all signed a letter Tuesday demanding 72 hours to review the final bill text, “the proper CBO/JCT scoring information” and clearance with the Senate that the bill will not be changed once the House passes it.
There is a Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) score for the bill, but the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released nothing, and it’s not clear when it will.
There’s been no effort to work with the Senate to make sure it won’t change the bill after it passes the House – known as pre-conferencing – and it is now widely expected the upper chamber will make significant changes to it.
There were changes made to the bill late Thursday night in the House Rules Committee, meaning 72 hours with the final bill text would be late Sunday night.
“While there has been progress to address some of his concerns, there remain significant issues he is still working to address in the substance of the bill,” a spokesman for Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, told Fox News Thursday. “That is in addition to the conditions he laid out earlier this week… around a CBO score, time to review, and pre-conferencing. I think you’ll agree those conditions have not been met.”
Case also told CNN he is sticking by the position laid out in the Tuesday letter and wants a CBO score.
Gottheimer was more equivocal in Thursday comments, and a spokesman told Fox News the JCT score would be enough for him to satisfy his scoring-related concerns about the bill.
Despite those apparently outstanding concerns, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., told members Thursday the chamber will vote on both the reconciliation bill and the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Fox News reached out to the offices of all five members – Gottheimer, Golden, Murphy, Schrader and Case – late Thursday after Hoyer’s announcement. None answered whether they will vote for reconciliation Thursday.
Democrats can only lose three votes and still pass the reconciliation bill.
Democrats love to give speeches about process but when it comes down to it, they don’t give a damn about process if they can ram through their agenda. Yes, I know, we’ve seen it with Republicans too.
But even if Pelosi gets her way and rams this though the House, it would still have to get past Manchin and Sinema in the Senate, which seems unlikely. And if Democrats in the House aren’t even willing to ‘preconference’ the bill with the Senate to iron something that works in both chambers, then this is NOTHING but kabuki theater.