Arizona Republic
The positions of Arizona’s Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly on President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Act remain hazy as Democratic Senate leaders continue to push toward a vote.
Although Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., announced Sunday that he would not support the legislationin its current form as being negotiated in the Senate, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., still plans to schedule a vote on the forthcoming bill next year.
With only 50 Democratic-held seats in the100-member Senate, holding a vote could be a futile gesture without Manchin on board.
In an internal “Dear Colleague” memo to his colleagues Monday, first reported by the Washington Post, Schumer wrote that having each senator vote would be important to record where each stands on the legislation that eventually emerges.
Sinema and Kelly have yet to commit to supporting Biden’s spending bill, which would be passed under the Senate’s budget reconciliation process.
Because a complete final version of the package does not yet exist, the Senate vote has yet to be officially scheduled.
Sinema so far has remained noncommittal toward the still-in-the-works Build Back Better Act.
Sinema has taken credit for reducing the cost of the approximately $3.5 trillion initial framework and has indicated support for the Biden administration’s initial blueprint.
But the roughly $2 trillion House version of the Build Back Better Act, which passed Nov. 19, is different from what the White House initially proposed.
