Democrats Huddle As Caucus Ascertains What’ll Happen This Week

Today, both the House and Senate Democratic caucuses have their big meetings. As we’ve seen in recent weeks, these meetings can spur significant forward motion. We’ll be watching what comes out of them this week even more closely than usual — negotiations over the handful of unresolved issues in the reconciliation package have shrunk to, for the most part, include only leadership and the obstinate few (mainly Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema).

There are deadlines coming up at the end of the week that will make Democrats’ lives harder if reconciliation is still dragging by then. The October 31 expiration of the highway funding extension will set up another pressure point to vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill, like we saw at the end of September. And the White House really wants all of this finished up in time for President Joe Biden’s sojourn to Glasgow for the UN Climate Summit, which begins Nov. 1.