Schoolhouse Rock didn’t prepare us for this. There is no cute song to simplify the long and complicated slog to passage for the bill formerly known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework, or BIF, even after the Senate managed to clear two daunting procedural hurdles last week.
Those votes are merely the beginning of the arduous process that could lead to the White House’s latest and greatest priority finally becoming a law. Last week, the Senate invoked cloture on a motion to proceed—congressional argot that simply meant that it needed to pass a 60-vote threshold just to limit debate on a vote to decide whether to take up the bill. Then it approved the motion to proceed, which only required a simple majority. But those were just the first fussy steps in a lengthy road—and there are a few speed bumps ahead. Here’s the map, if you want to follow along at home.
It’s useful to recall how we got here. First off, the Senate had to, well—write the bill with some specific language. Technically, the bill under consideration began its life as a “shell.” It’s a House surface transportation bill, originally authored by Representative Peter DeFazio, whose language would be stricken and replaced by the text of the BIF. (In an interview with The New Republic, DeFazio expressed some frustrations with the way the Senate was transforming his original vision.)
But that transformation began on Sunday, when what was once just a BIF became a BIB—a bipartisan infrastructure bill. After the text of the BIB was released on Sunday night, all 2,702 pages of it, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had to file a substitute amendment replacing the shell’s language with the Senate’s. (It may be worth mentioning here that the origination clause of the Constitution requires that all bills raising or appropriating money originate in the House. A substitute amendment sidesteps that provision, maintaining the House bill number but using the Senate’s language.)
Then came the amendment process, which requires agreement among all 100 senators. This can take a while. Since Monday, the Senate has approved five amendments, while three others have failed. It is expected to take up at least one more amendment on Wednesday. It’s unclear how many of the dozens of amendments introduced would ultimately be considered. Democrats are of the mind to move quickly, but Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Monday that he wants a thorough amendment process not “choked off by an artificial timetable.”
“I believe our colleague’s draft text provides a good and important jumping-off point to what needs to be a robust and bipartisan process out here on the floor,” McConnell said. On Tuesday, he warned Schumer not to limit the amendment process. “My best advice to the majority leader would be that slow and steady wins the race,” McConnell said.
The Senate has a planned recess that was supposed to begin at the end of this week, but between the infrastructure votes and a funeral for former Senator Mike Enzi on Friday, which several senators are expected to attend, it’s unlikely that break will actually begin on time.
But Schumer may want to speed along the process and limit debate by filing cloture on both the substitute amendment and the underlying bill. This would be followed by an intervening day allowing cloture to “ripen,” like the world’s most boring fruit.
As mentioned a few paragraphs ago, when you were younger and unburdened by these concerns, a cloture vote requires support from 60 senators. So it won’t be invoked unless a sufficient number of Republicans agree that enough amendments have been considered and it’s time to limit debate. Some Republican senators have suggested that Thursday may be the best day for Schumer to file cloture.
“Hopefully we’re done by Thursday. That’s our goal,” Senator Mike Rounds said on Tuesday. Senator Rob Portman, the lead Republican negotiator of the bill, told reporters on Wednesday that the Senate would “probably” wrap up amendment votes by Thursday.
If cloture is filed on Thursday, and takes Friday to ripen—which would also provide the time to allow senators to travel to Wyoming on Friday for Enzi’s funeral—the cloture vote could be on Saturday. Then there is up to 30 hours of debate, followed by a vote on whether to adopt the substitute amendment, which only requires a simple majority.
(Author provides a pause here for the reader to pop some ibuprofen for that growing headache caused by having to think about the tortuous particulars of Senate procedure.)
Now it’s time for the Senate to hold yet another cloture vote, this time on the underlying bill. Let’s say that passes with 60-plus votes. The Senate may not use all of the allotted 30 hours of debate, but it will likely age us psychologically by an immeasurable amount anyway. Then the Senate votes on the adoption of the underlying bill as an amendment, which—ta-da!—would constitute the final passage of the bill. Between the remaining amendment votes and the upcoming cloture votes, that means that there will still be a few days before final passage, which could happen sometime this weekend at the earliest.
But the infrastructure train will not have fully left the station—the Senate must now take the first steps for passing a separate “reconciliation” bill. You see, Schumer has insisted on a two-track strategy to pass much of Biden’s economic agenda. The first track is this bipartisan infrastructure bill; the second is a massive bill that includes Democrats’ remaining priorities, such as health care, childcare, immigration, and additional provisions related to climate change.
But there is no way that second bill will get support from any Senate Republicans. So Democrats will use budget reconciliation, a complicated and arduous process that allows budget-related legislation to pass with a simple majority and dodge the filibuster.
Schumer has said that he hopes to pass a budget resolution before the Senate goes into recess, which would lay out the instructions for crafting the reconciliation bill. He initially suggested that vote could happen this week, but that timeline is somewhat optimistic. Before Senate Democrats can pass the resolution, there will be up to 50 hours of debate and what’s known as a “vote-a-rama,” which is a lot less fun than it sounds. Many vote-a-ramas include consideration of dozens of amendments, and can often result in overnight sessions.
But Schumer seems determined to complete his goals, even if it means cutting into senators’ beloved August recess. “The Senate is going to stay here until we finish our work,” Schumer said on Tuesday. So if the Senate does remain in Washington to work on passing the budget resolution, that will occur sometime next week.
If the Senate manages to pass both in the coming days, it will be a victory for the Biden administration and for Schumer, whose insistence on passing two infrastructure bills had seemed overly optimistic as recently as last week. If the Senate fails to do so, well, at least we’ll have memories of this nearly inscrutable process to share with one another in the years to come. Maybe we can even write a song about it.