Sunday night the Senate voted 68-29 to end debate on the roughly $1 trillion infrastructure bill, setting it on a path to likely be passed in the Senate this week.
The Hill reports:
Even though the legislation — crafted by a bipartisan group of senators and the White House — is all but guaranteed to pass the Senate and head to the House, opponents could still use the chamber’s rules to run the clock for an additional 30 hours before the Senate can take a final vote. That would delay passage of the bill, absent an agreement, until early Tuesday morning.
The Senate’s snail-like pace comes as senators hit a stalemate while trying to reach an agreement to set up votes on potential changes to the legislation in exchange for senators agreeing to speed things up.
“Democrats are ready and willing to vote on additional amendments to the bill before moving to final passage. Once again that will require the cooperation of our Republican colleagues. I hope they will cooperate so we can move more quickly. Otherwise we’ll proceed by the book and finish the bill,” Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said from the Senate floor.
Senators had hoped to finish the bipartisan bill last week in a marathon session that would have lasted late into Thursday night or early Friday morning and involved voting on anywhere between 16 and 25 amendments.
While the infrastructure bill is likely to make it through the Senate it faces a less certain future in the House. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said that she won’t bring up the bipartisan deal until the Senate votes on a huge $3.5 trillion spending package which is not expected to come to the floor until the fall.
