The Senate’s passage on Tuesday of a trillion-dollar infrastructure package may have been a vote of confidence for President Biden and his insistence that bipartisanship can still thrive, but there is a far harder task ahead for his agenda: keeping Democrats in lock step.
The crosscurrents in the president’s own party have only sharpened since Congress began moving on parallel tracks with two separate legislative efforts. One, a $1 trillion bipartisan measure that the Senate passed Tuesday, would pay for roads, bridges, rail and water systems. The other, a budget blueprint the Senate passed early Wednesday, would come together this fall to expand the nation’s social safety net — education, health care, child care and climate change — with Democratic votes only.
It will fall to the president to keep his fractious party in line and both efforts moving forward.
“I would liken it to air traffic control,” Representative Tom Malinowski, Democrat of New Jersey, said on Tuesday. “We have at least a couple of planes circling the airport in stormy weather, and everyone wants to see their loved ones on the ground. But the important thing is to get everyone down safely. In what order and at what time best assures that, that’s the challenge.”
Mr. Biden, he said, will be “absolutely critical.”
House Democrats have their own problems. House leaders plan to hold a conference call as soon as Wednesday with the entire caucus to appeal for unity and plan a path forward, House Democrats said on Tuesday. The Biden administration has deployed several senior officials to meet with lawmakers, including the progressive, Black and Hispanic caucuses.
“We’ll get it done,” Mr. Biden said.
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