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Newly empowered in the Senate, Democrats instead chose to bypass Republican opposition and the risk of a filibuster — which takes 60 votes to break — and pass the legislation using a fast-track process known as reconciliation, which only requires a majority. But the strict budgetary rules governing the process forced Democrats to curtail their ambitions for the legislation, as did the competing factions of moderate and liberal lawmakers unafraid to wield their influence given the slim margins of control.
Even with changes, the bill remained more than than double the size of the roughly $800 billion stimulus package that Congress approved in 2009, when Mr. Biden was vice president, to counter the toll of the Great Recession. Top Democrats, many of whom voted to pass that bill and recalled winnowing down the package to appease Republicans, who still opposed it almost unanimously, said they were determined not to make the same mistake again.
Because the Senate package differs from the House version, it now returns to the House for a final vote, expected on Tuesday. Frustrated progressives could revolt and try to block it, but given the wide array of liberal priorities it addresses, leading progressives in the Senate signaled they were satisfied.
“Let’s be clear: This bill that we are completing now is the most significant piece of legislation to benefit working people in the modern history of this country,” said Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the chairman of the Budget Committee.
The endeavor served as the first test for Mr. Biden and Democratic leaders as they navigate precariously thin margins in the House and Senate, wrangling both moderates wary of another costly round of federal spending and progressives eager to use their newfound power to push through longtime priorities that languished when Republicans held the White House and the Senate. The intense haggling on the bill among Democratic senators at times overshadowed the partisan rancor, much to the delight of Republicans.
The struggle to push the measure through the Senate included two consecutive overnight sessions. First, Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, registered his objections by forcing the chamber’s clerks to read the entire 628-page bill aloud, a 10-hour-and-44-minute oration that began Thursday and ran into the early hours Friday. When the Senate reconvened in daylight, Mr. Manchin ground Senate action to a halt for more than nine hours as he successfully sought more reductions to the unemployment benefits.
Republicans then forced nearly three dozen amendment votes, a process that stretched until noon Saturday, in an effort to prolong an outcome they could not stop. The rejected changes included scaling back the entire plan to about $650 billion, conditioning school funds on the number of in-person classes, and reallocating state and local government funds elsewhere.
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