How Biden's massive Covid relief bill was put on a glide path to passage
Saturday, February 20, 2021
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While
Biden's hope for GOP support on Capitol Hill has all but disappeared in
the last several weeks, his enthusiasm for the proposal -- and his view
that despite its high price tag it will only serve to bolster Democrats
as they remain unified -- has hardly waned.
Asked what he learned from his efforts to sell the proposal at a CNN town hall in Wisconsin earlier this week, Biden didn'
t hesitate.
"I
learned based on the polling data that they want everything that's in
the plan," Biden said. "Not a joke. Everything that's in the plan."
As
House Democrats prepare to push through the legislation next week, with
Senate Democrats set to follow suit in short order, it's a moment that
underscores a confluence of factors on politics, policy and quiet, but
wide-ranging, behind-the-scenes work that has nearly all gone Biden's
way.
It
was equal parts an inside- and outside-the-Beltway effort by the White
House, aided by congressional Democrats involved early, and often, on
both the substance and politics of the proposal. Supporters were boosted
by a continuous run of positive public polling -- which White House
officials and congressional leaders made a point of regularly putting in
front of their members -- all as they sought to capitalize on state and
district-level officials and advocacy groups they knew would hold sway
on Capitol Hill.
The
effort to sell the proposal started early in the process with Biden's
transition team regularly consulting with top Democratic lawmakers as
they constructed their plan. Key elements, like the emergency expansion
of the Child Tax Credit -- a potentially transformative plank of the
plan -- came directly from legislation drafted by Democrats that held
wide-ranging support in their congressional ranks. There was a
recognition, multiple people directly involved said, that the cascading
crises meant now was the moment to go big.
By
the time Biden took office, his legislative affairs team -- made up of
several former Capitol Hill hands who brought with them significant
bipartisan credibility from their past staff work -- was already deeply
engaged in the process.
That
has carried on through the opening weeks of the administration. Since
February 5, the team has met with House and Senate leadership multiple
times a week, directly with 33 House members and held talks with more
than 100 key congressional staffers.
Biden's
aides were also ever present as the dozen House committees moved
through the process of considering each piece of the legislation, there
for technical guidance, and on some of the thorniest issues like the
qualification threshold for stimulus payments, even more than that,
sources say.
The
White House was bolstered by a pervasive posture from Democrats on
Capitol Hill: that letting the new President down in his first
legislative push was never an option. Even as Democrats have privately
grumbled about certain aspects of the bill -- whether it be the overall
scope, the eligibility for who receives stimulus checks or the rise in
the minimum wage -- most members acknowledge they'll ultimately vote for
it.
"Everyone
is in the same place," one House Democratic lawmaker told CNN. "There
are things we want fixed, but we aren't aggressively opposed. It is the
President's first major package, and there are a lot of people who feel
like this is his first ask, so for all those factors people are not
aggressively threatening not to vote for it."
On
top of that, multiple senators and aides point to polling showing the
bill with overwhelming popularity even among some Republican voters.
They also argue the onslaught of local support from mayors, governors
and county governments has made it hard for Republicans to effectively
message against it at home.
The GOP opposition
In
the Senate, Republican leaders are expected to make the case that the
process of writing the bill has been flawed. While the bill went through
House committees, it's expected to go straight to the floor in the
Senate.
"We
understand that, instead of building Senate bills through regular-order
deliberation, the Democratic majority instead intends to bypass their
own committees and bring the House bills straight onto the Senate
calendar and the floor. This would make Senate Democrats' first
legislative act of the 117th Congress the outsourcing of their own
committee gavels to the House," a group of Republican senators wrote to
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
In
the House, GOP leadership has urged their conference to vote "no" on
the package, pointing out a series of issues with abortion-related
language and the bill's overall effect on the federal deficit.
But
Democrats argue it's easy to defend themselves on legislation that
gives people direct checks, access to paid leave, an extension of
unemployment insurance and doesn't create new or controversial programs.
Much of the bill is bolstering or a continuation of programs that many
Republicans already voted for.
Several
Democratic sources pointed out that there has been no significant
opposition effort mounted to the plan -- no big outside spending to
attack the plan, no unified push by GOP campaign or advocacy groups to
puncture the growing bubble of momentum.
It
stands in sharp contrast to the multi-group, multi-million dollar
efforts put together by Democrats as they sought to sink former
President Donald Trump's top legislative priority -- the repeal and
replacement of Obamacare in 2017.
Multiple
GOP officials noted the difference in circumstances: while health care
is a highly polarizing issue, poll after poll has made clear that relief
for a country struggling through dual economic and public health crises
simply isn't.
"It's
not like we're looking around and saying, 'Hey, you know what would be a
great idea? Attacking stimulus checks to people,' " one senior GOP
official told CNN.
Republicans
will oppose the bill for a series of reasons, from the topline cost on
down, but the combination of a party still finding its way in the wake
of Trump's loss, along with a series of proposals that have maintained
popularity, has stunted the force of the opposition, the official said.
The
fact Trump himself was the genesis for the $1,400 direct payments
included in the Democratic proposal is also not lost on Republicans,
multiple officials said.
The outside game
As
Washington was inundated with the impeachment trial of Biden's
predecessor, the White House took pains to make clear they both weren't
involved and weren't paying attention. It wasn't entirely true -- Biden
was kept abreast of the trial and took to watching highlights each
night, two sources said.
But what was true was the blitz Biden's team was deploying outside of the Beltway.
There
were 70 local television appearances by senior administration officials
and surrogates during a three-week period. An Oval Office meeting
between Biden and a bipartisan group of governors and mayors garnered
major local coverage.
The
White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs held a series of
briefings with hundreds of state, local and tribal officials.
All
of that has contributed to a firm sense inside the White House that the
politics are firmly in their favor, several aides made clear. And not
just that supporters would be rewarded politically, but that those who
opposed it -- congressional Republicans -- would take a hit.
In
a memo to senior White House staff detailing several recent public
polls, Mike Donilon, one of Biden's closest advisers, said of the
opposition: "Rather than being cost free, this approach has been quite
damaging to them."
"Voters
are hurting -- and they're looking for leadership that comes forward
with plans and solutions," Donilon wrote in the February 16 memo
obtained by CNN. "This is not a moment in the country when
obstructionism will be rewarded."
It's
a position with which Republicans disagree. There has been little
hesitation from even moderate Republicans to reject Biden's plan, and
the unbending nature of the White House's posture has led many GOP
senators to question whether Biden was ever serious about bipartisanship
to begin with.
White
House officials say he is, and will continue to be, on the lookout for
opportunities to negotiate with Republicans. But they see little sign
that moving without Republicans on their first legislation out of the
gate will somehow poison future negotiations.
The hurdles ahead
In
order to build consensus quickly, aides and members say that a decision
was made early to write a bill that tracked very closely with Biden's
own American Rescue Plan. The thinking from the start was that beginning
from the ground up in committees could take too much time and
potentially result in unnecessary Democratic infighting in a moment when
unity was paramount.
Still,
Democratic leadership has worked closely with members in an effort to
try and build a coalition of support. Schumer has been having one-on-one
conversations with individual members, trying to do the work ahead of
time on what they need to support the bill.
"The
benefit is Chuck's leadership style is through that flip phone. Chuck
is constantly in informal conversations with members, which makes moving
a package like this a lot easier," said one Democratic senator who
spoke on background to discuss the ongoing caucus discussions about the
Covid relief bill.
Success
still isn't guaranteed. A handful of moderate members have made it
clear privately and in public statements that they can't support
legislation that includes raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, and
Schumer will need every single one of his members to back the bill in
order to pass it.
"There
are not 50 votes signed on the dotted line," the Democratic senator
told CNN on the state of talks right now. "I have still got changes to
this package that I want."
The
expectation among many Democratic aides and members is that the $15
minimum wage, which is currently the biggest obstacle to getting the
bill across the finish line, won't be allowed under the guardrails of
reconciliation, a budget process that requires each provision to adhere
to a strict set of rules but that could ultimately allow Democrats to
pass the legislation on a party-line vote.
"My
question is why are we including it and burning up time and promising
people they will get a $15 minimum wage increase when we know it is not
going to happen," one Democratic member told CNN.
If
the Senate's parliamentarian allows the provision to remain in the
bill, it could force leadership to have to make tough political
decisions about whether now is the time for that intra-party fight.
The
perils of the high-wire act of relying solely on Democrats in the
Senate was put on display Friday, when Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia
Democrat, announced he would oppose Biden's pick to
lead the Office of Management and Budget, Neera Tanden. If Tanden is
unable to secure Republican support -- something Democrats have been
exceedingly skeptical of up to this point -- Manchin's no vote would
effectively kill the nomination.
It's
a dynamic the White House is keenly aware of -- Biden and his team have
stayed in close contact with Manchin and his aides in recent weeks.
The dashed hopes of bipartisanship
At
various points, the biggest threat to Democratic unity was the desire
among some members to fight for bipartisanship. Many rank-and-file
members sought to hold onto the idea that there was a middle ground,
potentially willing to reshape the ultimate direction of the bill. Biden
himself had made clear before he took office that, as a 36-year veteran
of the Senate, he would seek bipartisan consensus.
They
were encouraged by the President's own outreach directly to Republicans
and a high-profile Oval Office meeting where Biden invited 10
Republicans to discuss their own ideas directly with him.
A
group of moderate Senate Democrats met frequently with Republican
counterparts to try and find a bipartisan compromise, holding out hope
in happy hour settings, phone calls and zooms that the relief bill could
be crafted in a way to attract GOP support like the previous pandemic
relief bills.
But
after a group of Senate Republicans came out with a roughly $600
billion proposal that didn't include any direct state and local funding,
many Democratic senators immediately torpedoed the proposal, forcing
even the moderates to evaluate how hard they ultimately were willing to
push for bipartisanship or wait for it, and whether there was too much
of a risk of losing votes on the progressive side of the caucus.
At
the same time, the message directly from Biden was clear:
bipartisanship would be ideal, but it wasn't a necessity, particularly
given the bill's perceived popularity outside of Washington.
Still,
a bipartisan group of House members took longer to convince. The
Problem Solver's Caucus -- a bipartisan group -- and the Blue Dog
Coalition -- a group of moderate and conservative Democrats -- pushed
separately behind the scenes for leadership and the White House to
separate out vaccine funding from the larger coronavirus package as a
way to move the funding faster and to provide a way for at least part of
the relief bill to be bipartisan.
Other
moderate Democrats agreed. The argument was that the White House could
move the package in two steps. But in conversations with Biden's team,
including chief of staff Ron Klain, the reality of the situation began
to come into focus.
Separating out the bills could take time and
potentially take the pressure off Republicans to back the larger package
altogether.
Democratic leaders and the White House made it clear: the package was going to stay together and so did Democrats.
Originally published on CNN