Infra Bill Passage May Have Gotten More Complicated: Punchbowl

Political news daily Punchbowl cite sources which suggest that the Democrats can still get an infrastructure bill passed via the reconciliation process using a simple majority, thereby avoiding the requirement to get 60 Senate votes to avoid a Republican filibuster. But it will not be simple.

• According to Punchbowl's report, the Senate Parliamentarian will allow Democrats to create multiple reconciliation bills within one fiscal year (which addressed the main issue in question before the Parliamentarian and is in line with expectations), BUT they won't be able to use this process as a shortcut. They:
• "cannot use reconciliation simply to avoid the regular legislative process, and there have to be reasons beyond political expediency for triggering the majority threshold, such as an economic downturn...In addition, Democrats would have to start the process from the beginning if they want to pass more than one reconciliation bill. That means going back to the House and Senate Budget panels, passing essentially new budget resolutions and bringing them to the floor. In the case of the Senate, this means a "vote-a-rama" for each budget resolution."
• Bottom line from Punchbowl is that his is not "impossible" for the Democrats to do, but "there are still many questions about how it would work, and what impact it would have on the Senate. Republicans, of course, would go ballistic over this, so it would be a huge political risk."
• It's unclear at this point how much this will impact the speed of passage or composition of an infra bill, which many senior Democrats want to move forward with in July.