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Carter Peterson would be the first Black woman to represent Louisiana in Congress if elected

Though Richmond did not endorse her, she noted that she has a long relationship with him. She said her opponent may have golfed with Richmond, but she fished with him.

Carter Peterson chaired the Louisiana Democratic Party for eight years, ending her term in 2020. She also served as vice chair of civic engagement and voter protection at the Democratic National Committee, where she developed relationships with national party leaders.

Her backers included Georgia voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams, Higher Heights for America PAC, which supports progressive Black women, and EMILYs List, which backs Democratic women committed to protecting abortion rights.

Women Vote, the independent expenditure arm of EMILYs List, spent $599,000 on media and mailings supporting Peterson and opposing Carter, according to disclosures with the FEC. American Jobs and Growth PAC, a conservative Republican super PAC, spent $84,000 on digital ads opposing Peterson.

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Runoff will pick the Democrat to replace Cedric Richmond in Louisiana's 2nd District - Roll Call

With backers of the recall against Gavin Newsom formally submitting the last of their petitions Wednesday, Democrats from California to Washington were readying what they hope will be a united front to keep the embattled governor in office.

Newsoms campaign is trying to keep the party focused on fighting the recall and preventing prominent Democrats from getting into the race to replace him if it qualifies for the ballot as expected. He has racked up high-profile endorsements from Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), among others, and hopes to tie the recall campaign to former President Trump and extremist groups.

The governor went on a national media tour this week, speaking out against the recall and generating both cheers from supporters and some controversy.

Nathan Click, Newsoms campaign spokesman, said he expected heavy support to fight the recall at the Democratic Party State Convention, scheduled for the end of April. Volunteers will spread out across the state to do text banking and other digital stumping in the upcoming weeks, he said.

Its been a steady drumbeat over the last few weeks of Democrats saying that [they support Newsom], Click said.

But its still unclear whether any Democrats will enter the race to replace Newsom as an insurance policy against the growing field of Republican candidates, something that happened during the 2003 recall that ended with voters ousting Democrat Gray Davis and replacing him with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

To secure the full strength of the Democrats support, Newsom may need to put in some work to court members of his own party.

While Democrats are united in keeping a Trump Republican out of the governors mansion, progressive caucus chair Amar Singh Shergill said some more left-leaning party members are waiting to see Newsom deliver on progressive policy promises such as a universal healthcare bill making its way through the state Legislature, a fracking ban and support for eliminating the filibuster in the U.S. Senate.

If Gov. Newsom doesnt get on board with these progressive issues and fight for them, then hes going to put his own candidacy at risk. Right now, were not looking at any other candidates, but we know theres a simple formula for him to win, Shergill said. He has got to start fighting for those issues and show us that he is making progress.

Though the state wont finish certifying the signatures for several weeks elections officials must determine how many are valid by April 29 Newsom acknowledged Tuesday that he expects the recall effort to qualify.

Recall supporters said Wednesday night that they gathered more than 2.1 million signatures, more than the roughly 1.5 million they need for an election to take place. Volunteers handed in last-minute petitions to the registrar Wednesday as the campaigns leaders celebrated the years-long effort.

Later this fall, the voters of California will be able to participate in this historic, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to participate in a recall of their chief executive officer, said Randy Economy, senior advisor for the recall effort. Its a very, very powerful moment.

On Tuesday, former GOP Rep. Doug Ose added his name to the list of other Republicans in the race to replace Newsom should the recall qualify for the ballot, including former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer and businessman John Cox, who unsuccessfully ran against Newsom for governor in 2018.

As the recall campaign neared Wednesdays deadline, Newsoms supporters united behind him in defense of his record as governor.

Im completely devastated with the fact that people have even gone out to try to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom, said Taisha Brown, chairperson of the California Democratic Partys Black Caucus. He has done some amazing work in the short time hes been in office. We wholeheartedly support Gavin, and will be working to fight back against the recall.

Brown applauded Newsoms handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, though she said he didnt always have the right tools from the federal government under Trump. She and Norma Alcala, vice chair of the Chicano Latino Caucus, praised Newsoms efforts to provide rent, food security and vaccines to essential workers, many of whom are people of color. They also pointed to Newsoms several appointments of Black and Latino people to statewide positions as another success.

Both caucuses have pledged to use their various campaign methods including radio ads, counterprotests and caravans to campaign for the governor.

Its basically just an attempt by the Republicans they cant win any elections, so theyre going to try and do a special election, Alcala said of the recall effort.

The California Democratic Party has pledged $250,000 to the campaign against the recall and launched a website, stoptherepublicanrecall.com, that Newsom promoted in a tweet on Monday when making his most direct comments yet about his fight against the effort. Other Democrats echoed Newsoms comments in condemning recall organizers as anti-vaxxers, QAnon conspiracy theorists and nationally funded Republicans.

This was something that was done under the Republican Administration under the thumb of the Trump followers, said Mark Gonzalez, chair of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party. Republicans knew they were losing their power nationally, and theyre trying to trickle it down here to California, and now here under this administration.

Recall advocates have maintained that one-third of petition signers are not Republicans, though polling shows the effort is far more popular among those in the GOP than Democrats or unaffiliated voters. Gonzalez said he believes Republicans were duping Democratic voters who signed the petitions into blaming Newsom for their situation during the pandemic.

The governors handling of the pandemic remains a banner issue for recall advocates. Democratic leaders across the state are hopeful that by the time a recall election rolls around, likely in the fall, coronavirus cases will be down and the economy will be in better shape. California has already delivered more than 13 million vaccine doses, and the federal relief package just passed by Congress will help peoples wallets and bolster state and local budgets.

Some in the California Democratic Party, including rural caucus chair Joy Sterling, said the recall is distracting state leadership from what should be its singular focus: tackling the pandemic.

Did he do everything perfectly? Did anybody do everything perfectly? No. Including my hero, Dr. [Anthony] Fauci, Sterling said. I think you just have to be, Oh, OK, that didnt work, now we try this.

Though Newsoms supporters believe his record will stand up to attacks from the recall campaign, they are also keeping close watch on any errors that could alienate voters in a race where he needs all the support he can get.

In the eyes of some Democrats, Newsom stumbled Monday when he told MSNBCs Joy Reid that, should California Sen. Dianne Feinstein retire, he would appoint a Black woman to replace her, noting that he already had a list of several Black women whom he would consider. Newsom came under pressure late last year to fill Vice President Kamala Harris seat with a Black woman, but instead appointed then-Secretary of State Alex Padilla, Californias first Latino senator.

Feinstein reiterated that she had no plans to retire and Newsom downplayed his statement the next day but not before riling up some members of the state Democratic Party Womens Caucus, who voiced their frustrations to chair Christine Pelosi that Newsoms theorizing about the senators replacement before she left office was not a good way to start the anti-recall campaign.

I would hope that they remember there are a lot of women who vote in the recall, and its not a very good look to pit women together to save the job of a man, Pelosi said of those organizing Newsoms campaign.

Pelosi agreed that stopping a Republican from getting into office isnt enough to galvanize voters, adding that grassroots organizers want to hear from the governor directly about what his message will be.

Dont just assume that because were Democrats and were Democratic delegates that you dont have to ask us, she said. If you dont respect us, dont expect us.

Staff writer John Myers contributed to this report.

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Democrats show united front to keep Gov. Gavin Newsom in office - Los Angeles Times

While were young, Chuck. Photo: Kevin Dietsch-Pool/Getty Images

Joe Biden isnt going to have an FDR-size presidency.

Or, at least, the odds that Biden will fundamentally transform the role of the state in the U.S. economy, more than double Americas union membership rate, lead the U.S. to victory in a world war, reinforce residential segregation, put tens of thousands of U.S. citizens into internment camps on the basis of their ethnicity, or enact similarly epochal changes to American life over the course of 12 years in office are very low. And his prospects for equaling LBJs feats of welfare-state expansion, civil-rights promotion, and crimes against humanity are similarly dim.

But size isnt everything. And Scranton Joe has a real shot at assembling the most progressive domestic legacy of any president who didnt put Americans in concentration camps or incinerate foreign civilians by the hundreds of thousands.

Which is kind of remarkable. As I noted last week, once it became clear that Democrats would have only a bare majority in the U.S. Senate and thus that a moderate from a deep-red state would have veto power over the partys agenda most observers assumed Biden would need to shelve his campaign platform in favor of bipartisan half-measures.

But the difference between a 49-member Senate Democratic Caucus and a 50-member one has proven far larger than anticipated. The Democrats triumph in the Georgia runoffs didnt merely secure Biden the power to appoint a Cabinet without Mitch McConnells permission; it cleared the way for a $1.9 trillion stimulus package that will cut child poverty in half, deliver thousands of dollars to every non-rich family in the country, rescue union pension plans, transform state-level fiscal politics, turbocharge economic growth, and potentially remake the conventional wisdom about macroeconomic policy in the U.S. for a generation.

The American Rescue Plans vast scope and high price tag did make some moderate Democrats nervous, but the American publics response to its passage has likely mitigated their concerns. A core tenet of contemporary political science and one lesson of Congress members own recent experience is that the American people do not take kindly to sweeping policy change. Public opinion tends to be thermostatic, growing more liberal when a Republican president enacts right-wing reforms and more conservative when a Democratic president enacts left-wing policies. A large majority of Americans believed the government had a responsibility to make sure everyone had health-care coverage until Barack Obama tried to honor that responsibility in 2009. And when Donald Trump attempted to undo his Democratic predecessors handiwork, Americans decided that socialized medicine was great again.

But Bidens COVID-relief bill has triggered no such backlash. Recent polls from CBS News and Morning Consult found that more than 70 percent of Americans approve of the legislation. In the latter survey, 44 percent of Republican voters endorsed the law, despite the congressional GOP voting unanimously against it. Some centrist Democrats wanted Biden to settle for a smaller stimulus for the sake of securing bipartisan buy-in. But the American Rescue Plans extraordinary popularity has enabled Democrats to have their Bernie Sanderssize fiscal policy and Republican validation, too, as multiple GOP lawmakers who voted against the package have taken to pretending they voted for it, thereby tacitly vouching for Bidens bona fides as a bipartisan dealmaker.

For once, an exercise of liberal ambition has provoked hand-wringing from Republicans instead of Democrats. As Politico reports:

The overwhelming sentiment within the Republican Party is that voters will turn on the $1.9 trillion bill over time. But that wait-and-see approach has baffled some GOP luminaries and Trump World figures who expected Republicans to seize their first opportunity to cast newly-in-charge Democrats as out of control. Instead, they fear the party did little to dent Bidens major victory a victory that could embolden the administration in forthcoming legislative fights and even the lead-up to the midterm elections.

The article features some quotes from conservative ideologues and/or grifters who are certain a different messaging strategy could have persuaded the median voter to dislike a bill that gave their family thousands of dollars. But other GOP consultants offer a more clear-eyed perspective on the partys problem. The basic issue is that fearmongering about Democratic fiscal profligacy just doesnt capture the bases imagination as it used to. There are several plausible explanations for this. By passing multi-trillion-dollar, deficit-financed tax cuts and relief packages under Trump, Republicans may have persuaded their own voters that Keynesian stimulus and Stalinism are actually different things. But it also seems as though conservative media has a harder time casting liberal economic initiatives as covert attacks on American values now that the Democrat in the White House is a (very) old white guy. Ultimately, conservative media will always put its own financial interests above the GOPs strategic ones. And libertarian critiques of the child tax credit just dont rate as well as the martyrdom of Dr. Seuss. As one Republican strategist told Politico, Whenever there is something that goes into pop culture, and now all this cancel-culture stuff, it is catnip for the base and the media, and Republicans are going to talk about that.

Centrist deficit hawks have been caught similarly flat-footed. For decades, the Beltways advocates for austerity could count on the Federal Reserve to tell the public that their profoundly political, empirically tendentious views were objective facts: The national debt was an unsustainable burden on Americas grandchildren, Social Security was going bankrupt, runaway inflation was near at hand, etc. But this is no longer the case. Instead of coercing the Democratic president into budget balancing with the threat of interest-rate hikes as Alan Greenspan did to Bill Clinton in the 1990s Fed chair Jerome Powell has served as a cheerleader for Bidens expansionary fiscal policy. And unable to sanctify their agenda by appealing to the Feds papal authority, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has struggled to explain why an entirely hypothetical future debt crisis should take precedence over minimizing current poverty and unemployment.

All of which is to say: Biden is strong, and the enemies of progressive economic policy are weak. Meanwhile, Americas vaccine rollout is proceeding apace, and Wall Street analysts expect the U.S. will enjoy a higher rate of economic growth this year than it has experienced since 1984 a development that should fortify the presidents political standing and business elites complacency about the deficit.

Put all these factors together and you get an exceptionally favorable environment for securing durable progressive change. Amid a post-pandemic boom, Democrats will face few political headwinds to making the temporary (de facto) child allowance in Bidens relief permanent. And much the same can be said for the laws increases to Affordable Care Act subsidies. Progressives will push for a strong public option, as well they should. But as Dean Baker notes, merely making the higher ACA subsidies permanent could be enough to unravel the employer-provided health-insurance system, which would itself erode a major obstacle to more thoroughgoing health reforms. Making the ARPs emergency rental-assistance benefits and its funding increase for K12 education into permanent budget items would be similarly transformative.

There is much else that Democrats can and should do with their tenuous grip on power. Most pressingly, the party must redress the gross underrepresentation of its constituents in Congress by banning partisan redistricting and granting statehood to D.C. and any other U.S. territory that wants it. And it must breathe new life into the countrys beleaguered labor movement, whose decline has been a disaster for both the Democratic Partys electoral fortunes and working peoples financial well-being.

But those reforms cant be advanced through budget reconciliation, which means they cant be enacted until the legislative filibuster is eroded. Whether Chuck Schumers moderates can be persuaded to meaningfully weaken the filibuster remains to be seen. What does seem clear, however, is that they arent prepared to cross that Rubicon until they have given McConnell the opportunity to waste their time.

Which is maddening, but whatever. Joe Manchins gonna Manchin. In the meantime, Democrats can move rapidly to consolidate the relief bills gains. Establishing a permanent monthly child allowance would constitute a historic expansion of the welfare state, one that would spare millions of kids the trauma of poverty every year in perpetuity. And this can be accomplished through a budget-reconciliation bill. Whats more, thanks to the Trump tax cuts, Democrats have a wide array of politically painless pay fors they can use to offset the cost of the child allowance (to make a program permanent through budget reconciliation, it must not add to the deficit after ten years). Merely restoring Obama-era tax rates for corporations and the wealthy would be more than sufficient to meet the child payments roughly $100 billion-a-year cost. Add in a capital-gains-tax hike, a financial-transaction tax, a wealth tax, and various other highly popular affronts to the one percent, and Democrats should be able to make the bulk of the ARPs programs into pillars of a new and improved American welfare state.

This fruit is ripe and low hanging. An irrevocably less cruel American society is right there for the taking. But if Democrats dont act quickly, Bidens chance to secure a not-quite-FDR-size-but-still-pretty-big presidency could disappear in a heartbeat.

Manchin, Jon Tester, and Sherrod Brown are not young men, and all represent red states in which Republican governors have the power to fill Senate vacancies with appointees of their choosing. If either of New Hampshires Democratic senators were forced out of public life by illness, tragedy, or scandal, Republican governor Chris Sununu would pick their successors. Vermonts Republican governor, Phil Scott, would have the power to replace a departed Bernie Sanders or Pat Leahy with a GOP lawmaker for at least six months (Scott has promised to replace them with ideologically similar substitutes, but his sincerity cannot be ensured).

The point is straightforward: Democrats currently have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to entrench a more generous welfare state. But that opportunity could quite literally expire at any moment. Thus, the party needs to stop pretending that ten Senate Republicans may be willing to support a $4 trillion infrastructure package that raises taxes on the rich and instead develop a reconciliation bill that combines green infrastructure spending with permanent versions of the ARPs best features as quickly as possible and get Bidens legacy into the law books before its too late.

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Democrats Need to Move Fast and Fix Things - New York Magazine

WASHINGTON Triumphant over the signing of their far-reaching $1.9 trillion stimulus package, Democrats are now starting to angle for a major political payoff that would defy history: Picking up House and Senate seats in the 2022 midterm elections, even though the party in power usually loses in the midterms.

Democratic leaders are making one of the biggest electoral bets in years that the stimulus will be so transformational for Americans across party lines and demographic groups that Democrats will be able to wield it as a political weapon next year in elections against Republicans, who voted en masse against the package.

Republicans need to gain only one seat in the Senate and just five in the House in 2022 to take back control, a likely result in a normal midterm election, but perhaps a trickier one if voters credit their rivals for a strong American rebound.

Yet as Democrats prepare to start selling voters on the package, they remain haunted by what happened in 2010, the last time they were in control of the White House and both chambers of Congress and pursued an ambitious agenda: They lost 63 House seats, and the majority, and were unable to fulfill President Barack Obamas goals on issues ranging from gun control to immigration.

It has become an article of faith in the party that Mr. Obamas presidency was diminished because his two signature accomplishments, the stimulus bill and the Affordable Care Act, were not expansive enough and their pitch to the public on the benefits of both measures was lacking. By this logic, Democrats began losing elections and the full control of the government, until now, because of their initial compromises with Republicans and insufficient salesmanship.

We didnt adequately explain what we had done, President Biden told House Democrats this month about the 2009 Recovery Act. Barack was so modest, he didnt want to take, as he said, a victory lap.

Now they are determined to exorcise those old ghosts by aggressively promoting a measure they believe meets the moment and has broader appeal than the $787 billion bill they trimmed and laced with tax cuts to win a handful of Republican votes in Mr. Obamas first months in office.

Republicans say the Democratic bet is a foolhardy one, both because of how little of the spending is directly related to the coronavirus pandemic and because of fleeting voter attention spans. But Democrats say they intend to run on the bill and press Republicans over their opposition to it.

This is absolutely something I will campaign on next year, said Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, who may be the most vulnerable incumbent Senate Democrat in the country on the ballot in 2022. Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, who heads the Democratic Senate campaign arm, said he would go on offense against Republicans who opposed the bill and sketched out their attack: Every Republican said no in a time of need.

Party lawmakers point out that the measure Mr. Biden signed on Thursday is more popular than the 2009 bill, according to polling; contains more tangible benefits, like the $1,400 direct payments and unemployment benefits; and comes at a time when the pandemic and former President Donald Trumps continued appetite for big spending have blunted Republican attacks.

People are going to feel it right away, to me thats the biggest thing, said Representative Conor Lamb, a Pennsylvania Democrat whose 2018 special election victory presaged the partys revival. Politics is confusing, its image-based, everyone calls everyone else a liar but people are going to get the money in their bank accounts.

And, Representative Sara Jacobs of California said, Democrats have learned the lessons from 2009, we made sure we went back to our districts this weekend to tell people how much help they were going to get from this bill.

Mr. Obamas aides are quick to note that they did promote their stimulus and the health care law but ran into much more fervent, and unified, opposition on the right as the Tea Party blossomed and portrayed the measures as wasteful and ill-conceived.

At the end of last week, with the Houses first extended recess looming at months end, Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed House Democrats to seize the moment.

Ms. Pelosis office sent an email to colleagues, forwarded to The Times, brimming with talking points the speaker hopes theyll use in town halls and news conferences. During the upcoming district work period, members are encouraged to give visibility to how the American Rescue Plan meets the needs of their communities: putting vaccines in arms, money in pockets, workers back on the job and children back in the classroom safely, it said.

For their part, White House officials said they would deploy the whole of government, as one aide put it, to market the plan, send cabinet officers on the road and focus on different components of the bill each day to highlight its expanse.

Democrats hopes for avoiding the losses typical in a presidents first midterm election will depend largely on whether Americans feel life is back to normal next year and whether they credit the party in power for thwarting the disease, despair and dysfunction that characterized the end of Mr. Trumps term.

If voters are to believe the Democrats are delivering on an American rebound, of course, its essential the country is roaring back to prepandemic strength in a way it was not at the end of 2009, when unemployment reached 10 percent.

You could be looking at an extraordinary growth spurt in the third and fourth quarters, and that takes you into the year when candidates make their way, said Representative Richard E. Neal of Massachusetts, chairman of the Ways & Means Committee, where much of the bill was crafted.

The politics of the legislation, in other words, will be clear enough by this time next year. If all the sudden you got high inflation and things are hitting the fan, Republicans are going to run on it, said Representative Filemon Vela, a Texas Democrat. If things are going well theyre going to run on something else.

For now, Republicans are expressing little appetite to contest a measure that has the support of 70 percent of voters, according to a Pew survey released last week.

Part of their challenge stems from Mr. Trumps aggressive advocacy for $2,000 direct payments in the previous stimulus package late last year, a drumbeat hes kept up in his political afterlife as he argues Republicans lost the two Georgia Senate runoffs because they did not embrace the proposal.

Its difficult for congressional Republicans to portray one of the main elements of the Democrats bill as socialism when the de facto leader of their party is an enthusiastic supporter of wealth redistribution. Moreover, right-wing media outlets have been more focused on culture war issues that are more animating to many conservatives than size-of-government questions.

Asked if they would run against the bill next year, the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, said, Theres going to be a lot of things we run against.

At the weekly news conference of House Republican leaders, Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming spoke about the stimulus for 45 seconds before changing the subject to the rising number of migrants at the Southern border.

Thestimuluspayments would be $1,400 for most recipients. Those who are eligible would also receive an identical payment for each of their children. To qualify for the full $1,400, a single person would need an adjusted gross income of $75,000 or below. For heads of household, adjusted gross income would need to be $112,500 or below, and for married couples filing jointly that number would need to be $150,000 or below. To be eligible for a payment, a person must have a Social Security number. Read more.

Buying insurance through the government program known as COBRA would temporarily become a lot cheaper. COBRA, for the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, generally lets someone who loses a job buy coverage via the former employer. But its expensive: Under normal circumstances, a person may have to pay at least 102 percent of the cost of the premium. Under the relief bill, the government would pay the entire COBRA premium from April 1 through Sept. 30. A person who qualified for new, employer-based health insurance someplace else before Sept. 30 would lose eligibility for the no-cost coverage. And someone who left a job voluntarily would not be eligible, either. Read more

This credit, which helps working families offset the cost of care for children under 13 and other dependents, would be significantly expanded for a single year. More people would be eligible, and many recipients would get a bigger break. The bill would also make the credit fully refundable, which means you could collect the money as a refund even if your tax bill was zero. That will be helpful to people at the lower end of the income scale, said Mark Luscombe, principal federal tax analyst at Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting. Read more.

There would be a big one for people who already have debt. You wouldnt have to pay income taxes on forgiven debt if you qualify for loan forgiveness or cancellation for example, if youve been in an income-driven repayment plan for the requisite number of years, if your school defrauded you or if Congress or the president wipes away $10,000 of debt for large numbers of people. This would be the case for debt forgiven between Jan. 1, 2021, and the end of 2025. Read more.

The bill would provide billions of dollars in rental and utility assistance to people who are struggling and in danger of being evicted from their homes. About $27 billion would go toward emergency rental assistance. The vast majority of it would replenish the so-called Coronavirus Relief Fund, created by the CARES Act and distributed through state, local and tribal governments,accordingto the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Thats on top of the $25 billion in assistance provided by the relief package passed in December. To receive financial assistance which could be used for rent, utilities and other housing expenses households would have to meet severalconditions. Household income could not exceed 80 percent of the area median income, at least one household member must be at risk of homelessness or housing instability, and individuals would have to qualify for unemployment benefits or have experienced financial hardship (directly or indirectly) because of the pandemic. Assistance could be provided for up to 18 months,accordingto the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Lower-income families that have been unemployed for three months or more would be given priority for assistance. Read more.

And by the end of the week, Mr. McCarthy announced he and a group of House Republicans would travel to the border on Monday in a bid to highlight the problem there and change the subject.

After spending the campaign vowing to find common ground with Republicans and make Washington work again, Mr. Biden, in his first major act as president, prioritized speed and scale over bipartisanship.

He and his top aides believe in legislative momentum, that success begets success and that theyll be able to push through another pricey bill this one to build roads, bridges and broadband because of their early win on Covid-19 relief.

The fact that we could do it without Republicans forces them to the table, said a senior White House official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the nitty-gritty of lawmaking.

Yet to the G.O.P. lawmakers who have signaled a willingness to work with the new administration, Mr. Bidens determination to push through the stimulus without G.O.P. votes will imperil the rest of his agenda.

What I would be worried about if I were them is what does this do to jeopardize bipartisan cooperation on other things you want to do you cant do everything by reconciliation, said Senator John Cornyn of Texas, alluding to the parliamentary procedure by which the Senate can approve legislation by a simple majority. Ive heard some of our members say that, If youre going to waste all this money on unrelated matters, Im really not interested in spending a bunch more money on infrastructure.

To Senator Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, who was one of the Senate Republicans who went to the White House last month pitching a slimmed-down stimulus, its downright bizarre to hear Democrats claiming their 2010 difficulties stemmed from not going big.

I would argue it was too big, it was unfocused, it was wasted money, Ms. Capito said.

To Democrats, though, they are avoiding, not repeating, their past mistakes.

The public didnt know about the Affordable Care Act and the administration was not exactly advertising, Ms. Pelosi told reporters last week.

Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, was just as blunt, singling out the Maine moderate who was wooed by Mr. Obama to ensure bipartisan support for the 2009 Recovery Act but whose appeals for a far-smaller compromise bill were ignored last month.

We made a big mistake in 2009 and 10, Susan Collins was part of that mistake, Mr. Schumer said on CNN. We cut back on the stimulus dramatically and we stayed in recession for five years.

And, he could have noted, his party would not have full control of both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue for another decade.

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Stimulus Bill as a Political Weapon? Democrats Are Counting on It. - The New York Times

The Congressional process known as reconciliation a way for Congress to enact legislation on taxes, spending, and the debt limit with only a majority in the Senate was successfully used to pass the American Rescue Plan. And now leading Democrats say an infrastructure bill could play out the same way.

Sen. Ben Cardin (D., Md.), who is involved in infrastructure negotiations, was overheard during an event Monday saying Democrats will most likely have to use reconciliation to get the deal done. The Republicans will be with you to a point, and then..," Cardin said before trailing off.

Jared Bernstein, one of President Biden's economic advisers, told Yahoo Finance the president wants a bipartisan deal, but if Republicans wont work with him to fulfill his campaign promises, he will push ahead.

He is absolutely devoted to making sure the American people get the kind of investments that he believes they put him there for, Bernstein said.

Republican lawmakers have already painted the just-enacted economic relief plan as a "liberal wish list" and would surely do the same about an infrastructure bill passed solely by Democrats.

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg speak during an event on Monday as as Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) listen on. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

But an infrastructure deal via reconciliation wont just impact the politics surrounding it, it would likely change the makeup of any legislation.

During an event on Monday former Republican Congressman Bill Shuster who once chaired the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee predicted a bipartisan deal could end up in the $1 trillion range. But he noted that if Democrats go for reconciliation, I think youll see a package bigger than that, in the range of $1.5 trillion to $1.7 trillion.

Reconciliation is a process that has been used more than 20 times in recent decades as a way to speed up consideration of certain types of legislation. Lawmakers could attempt to use the process for a second time this year to get an infrastructure bill done, but they'd be barred from including certain provisions that would otherwise be included in a bipartisan bill.

Story continues

A Democratic effort to raise the minimum wage was stripped out of the economic relief package because of reconciliation rules, and Shuster says similar policy changes could fall by the wayside in an infrastructure bill. He said he hopes Republicans and Democrats would be able to work together, which might lead to a deal that includes far-reaching changes in areas like rural broadband, pandemic preparation, or the electrical grid.

In a Yahoo Finance interview last month, Cardin also said he was hopeful for bipartisan support in order to deal not only with transportation, but to deal with water infrastructure, to deal with broadband, to deal with our schools, deal with our energy issues.

Gen Nashimoto, of Luminalt, installs solar panels in Hayward, Calif., on Wednesday, April 29, 2020. From New York to California, the U.S renewable energy industry is reeling from the new coronavirus pandemic, which has delayed construction and sowed doubts about major projects on the drawing board. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

Bernstein, who currently serves on the Presidents Council of Economic Advisors and previously was the Chief Economist to then Vice President Biden, is also focused on making any infrastructure bill long-lasting.

I can tell you, not just from an economic standpoint but from a political economy standpoint, that if you want to sustain a lasting program in this country, paying for it is often an important way to help that occur, he said.

What Bernstein didnt give additional details on were tax increases the White House might pursue to pay for the bill. Bernstein pointed to Bidens promises on the campaign trail tax increases on the highest earners, as well as on corporations but beyond that promised when the time is right, we'll come back and give you details.

Additional tax provisions could be on the table in a Democrats-only bill, including a financial transaction tax. During the campaign, Biden didnt promise such a tax but when asked about it, he said, I think we should have a financial transactions tax without offering further details like an appropriate rate level.

Brian Gardner, chief Washington policy strategist for brokerage and investment banking firm Stifel, told Yahoo Finance interview on Monday a financial transaction tax could be on the table.

It's one of those things that I don't think has gotten enough attention, said Gardner. It's going to get a very close look from Congress. Democrats have been pushing for such a tax for years and have renewed their calls around the GameStop saga.

White House Council of Economic Advisors member Jared Bernstein spoke to reporters at the White House in February. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Over the weekend, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also refused to rule out administration support for a wealth tax, which progressive Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) have been pushing.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.V.), a moderate Democrat, might be an obstacle to the Democrats' reconciliation push. His vote would be crucial and, in a recent Axios interview, said he believed it was possible to get the 10 Republicans on board who would be needed. "I am not going to get on a bill that cuts them out completely before we start trying," he said.

Bernstein also said Biden is hoping for a bipartisan bill: That is where he will start. But like the administrations approach to the economic relief package, he underscored that the White House is keeping other options on the table to get it done.

There's no reason to get ahead of ourselves, he said.

Ben Werschkul is a writer and producer for Yahoo Finance in Washington, DC.

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