They don’t have the balls.

I wish they did. It’d be a tremendous relief if a Democratic-controlled Congress could somehow be deterred from dropping a $3.5 trillion nuclear bomb on the federal budget.

But if centrists screw the left on this package when it’s almost within their grasp, knowing they may not be in a position to pass another bill like it for a decade or longer, the party could fracture. Dems need progressives at the polls next fall and a major spending bill is one of their best options to incentivize them. (“Keep us in the majority for another two years and see what we’ll do next!”) Having Manchin, Sinema, and a cohort of Blue Dog Dems in the House pull the rug out from under them would give the AOCs in the caucus conniptions. It’d be open warfare between the extreme left and the very-extreme-but-not-quite-as-extreme left.

Moderate Dems want to pass the bipartisan roads-and-bridges infrastructure bill that just passed the Senate. That one’s popular: Voters understand the need for it and the fact that it got 19 Republican votes in the upper chamber gives purple-district legislators plenty of extra cover to support it. But they’re nervous about the price tag on the reconciliation bill and they’re nervous about how swing voters will react to it, especially at a moment when 86 percent(!) of Americans say they’re concerned about inflation. If they can get the bipartisan bill through and then tank the reconciliation bill (or at least scale it way back), that’s their preferred outcome.

Their problem is that progressives know it and have maneuvered to prevent it. They’ve convinced Pelosi that the two bills need to be voted on together, their way of ensuring that Manchin and Sinema remain on board with reconciliation in the Senate. If Pelosi held a standalone vote on the bipartisan bill in the House and it passed, centrist Dems might then turn around and say “forget the other bill.” So lefties have told her that they won’t vote on the bipartisan bill if she brings it to the floor by itself, all but ensuring that it’ll fail. The bills are a package deal for the left and they have the numbers to make sure Pelosi listens.

But … do centrists have the numbers to twist Pelosi’s arm the other way, by threatening to tank the reconciliation bill unless she brings the bipartisan bill to the floor? Because Dems’ House majority is so narrow, it would take only a few moderates to blow up the budget resolution the House needs to pass a prelude to reconciliation in the Senate. And as chance would have it, according to Politico there are a few willing to take that step:

At least six of those centrists say privately they are willing to block consideration of the Democrats’ budget blueprint as a last-ditch move to stall the $3.5 trillion bill, according to two people familiar with the discussions. None of those Democrats would speak publicly about their plans, though they argue their influence is only growing with their party five seats away from losing the House…

“I believe we need to take an immediate vote on the infrastructure legislation that we have in front of us,” said Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), a co-leader of the centrist Blue Dog Coalition, adding that the House should not “hold the infrastructure bill hostage to the yet-developed reconciliation bill.”

“If it’s good enough for Bernie, why isn’t it good enough for House progressives? Why are some of them blocking this historic win?” added Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), a co-chair of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus that has endorsed the Senate-passed bill.

Politico says “at least six” centrists are willing to blow up the reconciliation process. Roll Call says it’s more like eight to 10. Either way, it’s Catch-22. If Pelosi doesn’t put the bipartisan bill on the floor, she can’t pass the reconciliation budget resolution. If she does put the bipartisan bill on the floor, progressives will abstain from voting and the bill will fail, humiliating Biden and the caucus.

But what if the bipartisan bill didn’t fail? What if the wily centrists were quietly working with House Republicans behind the scenes to form a bipartisan coalition that could get to 218 votes even with progressives abstaining from the vote? Hmmmm:

Given Pelosi’s commitment to not advance hard infrastructure without reconciliation too – the group is considering a proposal where the hard infrastructure vote would precede a separate vote advancing reconciliation *framework*, but not the final bill.

— Jacqui Heinrich (@JacquiHeinrich) August 11, 2021

Supposedly they’re working with the White House on the matter. But I find it all but impossible to believe that Pelosi and Biden would reverse course and agree that the bipartisan bill should get a standalone vote, even if they knew they had enough Republican support to pass it. The left would consider it a supreme betrayal, a knife between the shoulder blades, knowing that it would sacrifice progressives’ leverage to ensure passage of the $3.5 trillion bill. Besides, I think both Pelosi and Biden want that reconciliation mega-bill to pass for legacy reasons; they’d be sacrificing their own leverage by giving centrists a shot to get the bipartisan bill through and then tank the mega-bill.

Nor is it clear that they could find enough Republican votes to replace the abstaining progressives if the bipartisan bill came to the floor. Trump has issued multiple angry statements vowing to primary anyone who supports the bipartisan roads-and-bridges legislation. That’s stupid — the bill is polling at 62 percent — but Trump says a lot of stupid things that are nonetheless highly influential among House Republicans. Pelosi would probably need a few dozen Republican voters to replace defecting lefties. Can she really find that number with Trump adamantly opposed?

They did find several dozen Republicans willing to vote for the January 6 commission despite Trump’s opposition.

There are other reasons why centrist Dems want to vote on the bipartisan bill soon, before reconciliation is ready, besides their hope that the mega-bill might tank afterward. Current transportation funding expires on September 30 and there’s zero chance the reconciliation bill will be done by then. It could drag on for months. They also like the idea of two “wins” instead of one, which they can get by separating the bills even if the mega-bill ends up passing. And they may also be worried about the bipartisan bill being tweaked in the House to include some divisive climate-change provisions championed by Peter DeFazio that can’t be added to the reconciliation bill due to the Senate’s “Byrd rule.” The sooner the vote on the bipartisan bill is held, the less chance House lefties will have to fiddle with it and then send it back to the Senate, where the revised bill might not find the same support.

But Pelosi’s not going to budge, I expect. Centrists will be made to cave.