Moderates bring House to standstill in Biden budget clash

WASHINGTON (AP) — Confronting moderates, House Democratic leaders tried to muscle President Joe Biden’s multitrillion-dollar budget blueprint over a key hurdle, working overnight to ease an intraparty showdown that risks upending their domestic infrastructure agenda.

Tensions flared and spilled into early Tuesday as a band of moderate lawmakers threatened to withhold their votes for the $3.5 trillion plan. They were demanding the House first approve a $1 trillion package of road, power grid, broadband and other infrastructure projects that’s already passed the Senate.

Despite hours of negotiations at the Capitol, the House chamber came to a standstill and plans were thrown into flux late Monday, as leaders and lawmakers huddled privately to broker an agreement. Shortly after midnight, leaders announced no further votes would be taken until Tuesday’s session.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi implored Democrats during a private caucus not to bog down and miss this chance to deliver on the promises Biden and the party have made to Americans.

“Right now, we have an opportunity to pass something so substantial for our country, so transformative we haven’t seen anything like it,” Pelosi said, according to a person who requested anonymity to disclose the private comments.

Pelosi told them it was “unfortunate” they were discussing the process when they should be debating the policy. “We cannot squander this majority and this Democratic White House by not passing what we need to do,” she said.

With Republicans fully opposed to the president’s big plans, the Democratic leaders were trying to engineer a way out of a potentially devastating standoff between the party’s moderate and progressive wings that risks Biden’s agenda.

Pelosi’s leadership sought to sidestep the issue by...