Get Ready for Infrastructure Weekend

Punchbowl News: “The Senate returns to session at 11 a.m. tomorrow, and there will be a cloture vote around noon to cut off debate on the 2,700-page, $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. After that, everything is up in the air as far as scheduling goes. It’s clear there’s sufficient support among senators to invoke cloture — clear a parliamentary hurdle — on the massive package (which is technically a substitute amendment), yet there is no endgame deal at this point.”

“Absent any kind of agreement between the two sides — and Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) wouldn’t go along with such a deal Thursday night — there’ll be up to 30 hours post-cloture debate time. That will be followed by a simple majority vote on the substitute amendment (the bipartisan infrastructure bill). At that point, another cloture vote will be in order on the underlying legislation (the INVEST Act, a House-passed infrastructure measure.) Again, that may be followed by up to 30 hours of post-cloture debate time. Amendment votes would be allowed during this period. Then there would then be a vote on passage of the entire package. Yeah, it’s complicated.”

“In the worst case, this final vote could happen Tuesday. We don’t believe it will go that long, but it could.”