21 senators clinched infrastructure for Biden. Who’s in the deal’s bipartisan coalition? – USA TODAY

11 Republicans, 9 Democrats and 1 independent sealed the infrastructure deal.
Among names on that list: Collins, Murkowski, Romney, and Portman, plus Sinema, Tester and Manchin.
The bipartisan nature of the deal doesn’t mean everyone’s happy, especially progressive Democrats.

WASHINGTON — After months of negotiations, President Joe Biden has reached a deal with a bipartisan group of senators on a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package.

In the East Room of the White House on Thursday, Biden declared “we have a deal” after a 30-minute meeting with the group of senators earlier in the day..

An initial round of negotiations with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., the lead GOP negotiator who is seen as closely aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., fell through early June over disagreements about how to finance the package and what counted as infrastructure.

The new bipartisan coalition, spearheaded by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., includes 11 Republicans, nine Democrats and one independent. The coalition included a number of moderate dealmakers in the Senate.

‘We have a deal’:Biden reaches $1.2 trillion infrastructure compromise with bipartisan group of senators

Which Republicans made the infrastructure deal?

The Republican senators in the coalition include:

Richard Burr of North Carolina
Bill Cassidy of Louisiana
Susan Collins of Maine
Lindsey Graham of South Carolina
Jerry Moran of Kansas
Lisa Murkowski of Alaska
Rob Portman of Ohio
Mitt Romney of Utah
Mike Rounds of South Dakota
Thom Tillis of North Carolina
Todd Young of Indiana

Which Democratic caucus members backed the deal?

The Democratic senators who signed onto the package include:

Chris Coons of Delaware
Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire
John Hickenlooper of Colorado
Mark Kelly of Arizona
Joe Manchin of West Virginia
Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire
Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona
Jon Tester of Montana
Mark Warner of Virginia

Angus King, an independent who caucuses alongside the Democrats, also supports the deal.

More:Biden’s infrastructure plan would create many jobs, but labor shortages may mean few workers will take them

Bipartisan nature doesn’t mean all Democrats support deal

“Mitt Romney’s never broken his word to me. The senators from Alaska and Maine, they’ve never broken their words to me,” Biden said in remarks about the package. “I trust them when they say, ‘This is a deal, I’ll stick to the deal.'”

The coalition represents a geographically diverse set of senators with lawmakers from every part of the country coming to support the bill. Both senators from Arizona, represented by two Democrats, and North Carolina, represented by two Republicans, supported the bills, the only states that had unified Senate delegations.

The deal the group reached has come under criticism from some progressive Democrats, who argue the deal would not adequately address the country’s infrastructure needs.

More:Manchin’s staunch opposition to ending filibuster puts Biden’s agenda in jeopardy

Sens. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., made clear earlier this month they could not support an infrastructure package that didn’t address climate change unless it was coupled with another package that did tackle climate.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who chairs the Senate Budget Committee and has proposed a $6 trillion infrastructure package of his own, has also stressed that a bipartisan deal cannot be passed without it being coupled to another package.

“There cannot be one without the other,” Sanders told the New York Times on Tuesday.

More:Democrats say Mitch McConnell is back to all-out obstruction. He says that’s ‘nonsense’

Most Republicans remain skeptical of the White House deal brokered with their 11 colleagues. Portman, the Ohio Republican, told reporters on Capitol Hill on Thursday before their meeting with Biden that McConnell “remains open-minded, and he’s listening.”

The Kentucky Republican himself, who oversaw parts of the GOP’s initial negotiations with Biden, hasn’t said whether he will direct his caucus to support the bill.

On Thursday, Biden was firm in acknowledging that the deal is only “one half” of his administration’s economic agenda, with other measures targeting family policy and climate change likely to come after the infrastructure deal.

“My party is divided, but my party is also rational,” he said of Democrats’ desire to pass a bipartisan infrastructure package and then a larger bill likely to be enacted through budget reconciliation, a process the parties often used to bypass the Senate filibuster and thus opposition input.

The president then added that “if this (bipartisan deal) is the only thing that comes to me, I’m not signing it,” a clear sign that the bipartisan effort was not a compromise on the administration’s ambitions.

Follow Matthew Brown online @mrbrownsir.

Source Article from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/06/24/bipartisan-group-21-senators-reached-infrastructure-deal-biden/7779683002/

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21 senators clinched infrastructure for Biden. Who’s in the deal’s bipartisan coalition? – USA TODAY

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