President Biden attended a private meeting Friday afternoon of House Democrats, seeking to unite his party behind both pieces of his domestic agenda as they remain mired in deep internal divisions.
His appearance on Capitol Hill came after days of increasingly bitter feuding among liberal and moderate factions in the party culminated on Thursday in a decision by Democratic leaders to delay a planned vote on a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package because of a progressive blockade.
A closed-door meeting called by Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday morning did little to resolve the disputes, as lawmakers from swing districts pleaded for passage of the infrastructure bill and liberals in safe Democratic seats insisted that they would not vote yes until the Senate passed an ambitious climate change and social safety net measure.
Mr. Biden, who was accompanied by top advisers including Steve Ricchetti, Cedric Richmond and Louisa Terrell, the director of legislative affairs, was greeted in the Capitol by Democratic leaders.
Many Democrats have issued public pleas for Mr. Biden to become more personally involved in the negotiations, saying he needed to step in to allay the mistrust and frustration that has escalated during the impasse over how to pass his agenda.
“I think the President might be the only person that can bridge both the trust gap and the timing gap,” said Representative Dean Phillips, Democrat of Minnesota.
Ms. Pelosi convened the morning meeting with an appeal for unity, telling her troops they could stay strong if they united, according to multiple people familiar with the session who described it on the condition of anonymity.
Her top lieutenants, including Representatives Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the Energy and Commerce Committee chairman, and Richard Neal of Massachusetts, the Ways and Means Committee chairman, tried to buck up the Democratic Caucus by touting the elements of their $3.5 trillion domestic policy bill: measures to tackle climate change, bring down prescription drug costs and raise tax rates on the rich and on corporations.
But with two key centrist senators balking at the size and ambitions of that measure, the appeals did not appear to break the logjam. Politically vulnerable Democrats were left to plead with their liberal colleagues to lift their blockade of the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which they argued was needed to show their party could govern.
Ms. Pelosi, for her part, said she would not force a vote on the legislation before a broader agreement could be reached on the rest of President Biden’s agenda.
“But we cannot and I will not ask you to vote for” the infrastructure bill, she said, “until we have the best possible offering that we can stick with.”
“And it’s not just me,” she added, according to people familiar with her comments. “This is about the president of the United States.”
“That’s why it is our intention to bring up the vote today — it is our intention to win the vote today,” Ms. Pelosi said.
Many Democrats were growing impatient. Representative Abigail Spanberger, from a Virginia district that was long held by Republicans before her win in 2018, sought to assure the party’s progressives that centrists like herself were committed to taking action on climate change through the reconciliation package.
“That is singularly one of the most transformative things that we can do to our country,” she said, urging a vote on the infrastructure plan. “We are unified on this.”
The infrastructure legislation includes billions of dollars for electric vehicle recharging stations, fortification of the electricity grid to power those vehicles, and projects to make climate-ravaged areas more resilient.
Another moderate, Representative Tom Malinowski of New Jersey, told members the House should stay through the weekend to find a compromise, a sentiment backed by other lawmakers. Yet progressives showed little inclination to budge.
The meeting Friday came after a late-night decision by Ms. Pelosi to delay the infrastructure vote, an abrupt reversal after she had spent much of Thursday insisting there would be action on the bill that day. Just before 11 p.m., the vote was postponed, giving Democrats more time to reach agreement on the larger bill.
Leaving the Capitol just after midnight, Ms. Pelosi told reporters “we’re not trillions of dollars apart” and vowed “there will be a vote today” on the infrastructure measure.
The public works bill, which would provide $550 billion in new funding, was supposed to burnish Mr. Biden’s bipartisan bona fides. It would devote $65 billion to expand high-speed internet access; $110 billion for roads, bridges and other projects; $25 billion for airports; and the most funding for Amtrak since the passenger rail service was founded in 1971. It would also accelerate a national shift toward electric vehicles with new charging stations and fortifications of the electricity grid that will be necessary to power those cars.
But Representative Pramila Jayapal, Democrat of Washington and the head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and other progressive leaders for weeks had said they would oppose it until they saw action on the legislation they really wanted — a far-reaching bill with paid family leave, universal prekindergarten, Medicare expansion and strong measures to combat climate change.
“Nobody should be surprised that we are where we are, because we’ve been telling you that for three and a half months,” Ms. Jayapal said.
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