Sen Manchin Is The De Facto Interim Legislative Leader
It seems to me that the key takeaway from last night's legislative maneuvering is that the winner was Sen Manchin, who succeedced in using Tuesday's election outcomes to nudge Speaker Pelosi off the position she articulated on Wednesday that the outcome would not change her legislative agenda, which was presumably to link the BIF with the BBB and pass both at the same time. By Friday, it had become plain that this would be impossible, and the House leadetship was forced to cobble up a last-minute Plan B, which amounted to passing the BIF first with Republican support -- a Manchin prescription -- while deferring action on the BBB, eventually to go to the Senate, where Manchin's agenda will also prevail. Speaker Pelosi used up a great deal of time, energy, and political capital allowing the House progressives to wag the dog on the legislative agenda, but accomplished nothing. As Matt Lewis put it on Yahoo News, After a long on-again, off-again back-and-forth st...