Both the House and Senate are in recess today for the Juneteenth Holiday. The House will return for votes on Tuesday, June 22nd at 6:30 p.m. The Senate will reconvene at 3:00 p.m. on Monday, June 21st, and resume consideration of the nomination of Christopher Charles Fonzone to be General Counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Next week is shaping up to be a key week for infrastructure legislation in the Senate. Centrists have gained leverage in the battle over the package after 11 more senators backed the bipartisan $974 billion infrastructure framework. Twenty-one senators in all are supporting the proposal, which is much smaller than what the White House and liberals prefer. The group includes 11 Republicans, nine Democrats and independent Senator Angus King of Maine who caucuses with Democrats. And centrist Democrats are touting the support of their 11 Republican colleagues for the five-year spending plan, arguing it is a strong indication that it can pick up 60 votes and pass the Senate outside the budget reconciliation process, which would avoid a filibuster but force all of the Senate’s 50 Democrats to stay together. The prospect that a significant bipartisan accomplishment could be within President Joe Biden’s grasp will make it tougher for progressive Democrats to persuade the White House and their congressional leadership to cut off talks with Republicans. Only a few days ago, they could make a pretty strong argument that the talks were a waste of time and that Republicans were stringing their colleagues along and a reconciliation package was the only chance to pass an infrastructure bill. The scaled-down bipartisan package would leave out many of Biden’s more ambitious priorities, such as $400 billion for long-term home health care. There are still questions about whether the ways to pay for the proposal assembled by the group would actually cover the cost of the plan, and whether Biden would accept controversial proposals to index the gas tax to inflation and repurpose up to $120 billion in unspent pandemic relief funding.
At 2:15 p.m. President Biden is expected to deliver remarks on the COVID-19 response and the vaccination program.
