(RepublicanInformer.com)- Last Wednesday Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer pushed through a procedural vote to begin debate on the bipartisan infrastructure plan despite the fact that the bill has not yet been written. Republicans naturally objected to holding the vote before a bill even existed and demanded that Schumer hold off on the vote until this week.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who referred to last Wednesday’s vote a stunt, pointed out that traditionally the Senate does not hold any votes before a bill is written.
But Schumer persisted, telling reporters the day before the vote that there was no reason that the vote would fail.
The vote failed 49 to 51.
On the same day as the failed vote, Democrat Senators said they expected that Schumer would try again to begin debate on the bipartisan bill this week if a group of bipartisan Senators is able to finalize the agreement.
Democrat Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois told reporters last week that he believes this finalized agreement should be ready by Monday, July 26, adding that he expects that a second vote will be held sometime this week.
While Schumer hasn’t said specifically what he plans to do this week, interestingly enough, he was one of the Senators who voted no on last Wednesday’s procedural vote that he himself pushed forward – which all but confirms what Republicans said about the vote being a sham.
Some Republicans, including Senator John Cornyn of Texas, believe that Schumer’s scheduling Wednesday’s vote despite knowing it would fail is a clear signal that Schumer wants the bipartisan negotiated infrastructure bill itself to ultimately fail.
Democrats are largely focused on forcing through the $3.5 trillion phony infrastructure bill pushed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Schumer already announced early on that this massive spending bill – that contains very little actual “infrastructure” spending – will be pushed through the Senate using the budget reconciliation process which only requires a simple majority of 51 votes to pass.
The far-Left Democrats in the House are urging Schumer to place priority on this insane spending plan with or without the accompanying “bipartisan” infrastructure bill.
But attempting to move forward with the partisan bill without first passing the bipartisan plan could likely cause problems in the Senate since both Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema do not support abandoning the bipartisan plan.
