WASHINGTON — For months, Democrats have considered the name “Joe Manchin” to be synonymous with obstruction, as liberals fretted that their party’s moderate senator from West Virginia would never sign on to any meaningful climate change legislation.
But after the coal country politician shocked progressives and Republicans alike Wednesday night by agreeing to the biggest climate-change-fighting investment in the country’s history, the spotlight now turns to another hard-to-please, if lower profile, moderate: Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
Sinema, a party-bucking Democrat who last year helped sink President Biden’s hopes of passing voting rights legislation and deflated liberal activists’ hope of raising the minimum wage with an unapologetic thumbs-down on the Senate floor, left the Capitol on Thursday without disclosing whether she’d support Manchin’s sweeping deal with Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer of New York.
“She doesn’t have comment,” said an aide in a clipped tone as Sinema studiously ignored a phalanx of reporters lobbing questions at her. “She’s going to be reviewing the text and she’ll have to see what the parliamentarian process produces.”
That leaves Democrats uncertain whether their Lazarus of a deal will have an easy path toward becoming law before the August recess begins. The measure would put $369 billion toward fighting climate change and $64 billion to shoring up the Affordable Care Act, while raising taxes on large corporations. Given likely unanimous Republican opposition, the party must have all 50 Democrats stick together in order to pass the bill.
The deal appears to have been reached without Sinema, and includes a revenue-raising measure aimed at investment managers that she has opposed in the past. On Thursday, several Democrats would not venture a guess on Sinema’s plan, but noted it would be politically difficult to oppose the bill now that Manchin’s on board.
“I decided a long time ago with regards to my senator from Arizona that [there’s] no crystal ball involved in what political decision she’s going to make,” said Representative Raúl Grijalva, a Democrat from Arizona who believes Sinema “politically doesn’t have a choice” to not back the deal.
The package would be a massive win for Biden, whose approval ratings have lagged as his party’s plans for a big social spending and climate bill shrank and then died outright when Manchin said he couldn’t support it due to his concerns it could worsen inflation. With Republicans in a position to retake control of the House during this fall’s midterm elections, the window for serious climate action while Democrats hold unified control of Congress is rapidly closing.
“For her to try and torpedo this thing, I think she’d be radioactive within the Democratic Party,” said Jim Manley, a Democratic strategist who served as an aide to former Senate majority leader Harry Reid when he muscled the Affordable Care Act into law.
But, he added, “given how unpredictable she’s been, no one should be complacent here. There may be a few more twists and turns before this is actually signed into law.”
Some of those potential road blocks have nothing to do with Sinema. The Senate parliamentarian still needs to review the bill to determine whether it can be passed under a maneuver called reconciliation that requires only a bare majority — 50 votes, plus Vice President Kamala Harris’s tie-breaking vote.
And beyond that, Democrats could struggle to convene their full caucus in the coming weeks, with COVID rocketing around the Senate. On Thursday, Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, who is the Democrats’ majority whip, and Manchin were both quarantined with COVID, while Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont was out recovering from surgery.
“We have a lot of historic votes to cast next week on climate,” said Democratic Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts, who is vaccinated and twice boosted and has not contracted the virus. “I think all of us have to be really careful over the next week and a half.”
Markey, a longtime champion of fighting climate change, is urging his caucus to commit to not leave Washington for the August break, tentatively scheduled for the end of next week, until they advance the bill.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island said his biggest concern was that all 50 Democrats would be healthy and able to make it to the floor.
But he acknowledged that Sinema’s support is not yet assured.
“She is well within her rights to make sure she understands all of the elements of the very big bill that has been dropped only last night,” Whitehouse said, adding that he is placing his trust in Schumer to get the measure over the finish line.
“Senator Schumer would not be proceeding if he weren’t confident that he could marshal the votes,” Whitehouse said.
Until now, the debate over the climate bill has unfolded almost entirely on Manchin’s terms, with Sinema’s views rarely discussed. Manchin stuck a knife in the $1.9 trillion version of the bill, which would have included $550 billion for the climate as well as significant funding for child care and health care, saying he thought it would increase inflation and balloon the nation’s deficit. He and Schumer quietly restarted negotiations in the spring, but just weeks ago, Manchin reportedly walked away again.
In an unexpected twist, the man responsible for sinking the bill brought it back to life after discussing its inflationary potential with former Treasury secretary Lawrence Summers, who has spent months warning Democrats that government spending that is not offset by increased revenue will increase inflation.
Summers, who said it’s “public” that he’s been speaking to Manchin on these issues for a year, said he believed this bill would be “anti-inflationary,” in part by reducing budget deficits and increasing the supply of energy production.
Although it makes historic investments in combating climate change, the deal also contains several measures that would benefit the oil and gas industry that appear designed to persuade Manchin, who has raised more money this election cycle from fossil fuel interests than anyone in either party, to come on board. It would ease rules for gas pipelines, something that could directly benefit Manchin’s home state, and also bolsters offshore drilling for oil and gas.
In a Zoom call with reporters Thursday morning, which he held virtually because of his COVID status, Manchin said he had not spoken to Sinema yet about the bill but hoped she would be “receptive” to it since it did not increase taxes, in his view, except for enforcing a 15 percent minimum tax on large corporations.
But, in a nod to one area where his and Sinema’s interests may be directly opposed, he conceded he was “adamant” that the package limit the “carried interest” provision that taxes some income earned by private equity and hedge fund financiers at a lower rate.
“Enough’s enough for the one-10th of 1 percent of the wealthiest people in the country having an advantage,” Manchin said. “I’m not prepared to lose it.”
But with momentum building and early indications that House progressives are willing to back the deal, some Democrats were already looking ahead to the bill’s passage.
“I think this will be maybe the most popular thing Congress has done in a decade,” Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut said.
Jess Bidgood can be reached at Jess.Bidgood@globe.com. Follow her @jessbidgood. Tal Kopan can be reached at tal.kopan@globe.com. Follow her @talkopan.