House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was so confident that Democrats would get unified control of Washington that she began publicly discussing how the party would move forward to implement an ambitious agenda on multiple fronts, from health care to economic relief to infrastructure. She was eyeing a legislative maneuver called “budget reconciliation” to push extensive legislation through the Senate without GOP votes — the same mechanism that Republicans used to pass their partisan tax bill in the first year of Trump’s term, and that Democrats used to pass the Affordable Care Act under President Barack Obama…

The potential for such far-reaching legislation all but vanished barely 24 hours later as Democrats saw their chances to reclaim the Senate slip away — and with it the ability to pass legislation on a party-line vote. Instead, House Democrats will be forced to make deals with a Senate that is still led by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who is likely to have little interest in legislation of the scope the Democrats were envisioning. Pelosi will be presiding over a shrunken majority, giving her less room to maneuver…

“We all felt that we had the possibility of being able to really change the direction of the country, and that’s not looking like a realistic possibility right now,” said House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth (D-Ky.). “We had prepared a lot of memos on things like reconciliation that now we’re going to have to file away unless something crazy happens in the Senate.”…

Not all Democrats, though, have conceded they will scale back their plans.