Biden called Pelosi to congratulate her on passing infrastructure bill, source tells CNN

The House is voting now on the infrastructure bill after hours of internal delaying and debating among Democrats.

This bill has already passed the Senate, and if passed, would head to President Biden’s desk.

How we got here: Going into Friday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said it was her intention to vote on final passage of the infrastructure bill and the social spending bill known as Build Back Better.

But, Friday morning it was clear that a group of House moderates were not ready to support the final passage of Build Back Better for a variety of reasons. 

To accommodate that group, after hours of inaction, Pelosi decided to schedule a final vote on the infrastructure bill, and stop short of final passage of the Build Back Better bill, by only voting on the rule governing debate, hoping that would be enough to unify Democrats. 

That plan however immediately collided with a significant number of progressives, who have consistently called for both the infrastructure and Build Back Better bills to move together.

Progressives stalled floor action for hours as they deliberated how to move forward.

Then, moments before the final vote, a group of key moderate holdouts released a statement vowing to vote for the social spending package “in its current form other than technical changes, as expeditiously as we receive fiscal information from the Congressional Budget Office-but in no event later than the week of November 15.”

Shortly after this commitment from moderates, Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal released a statement saying that the Progressive Caucus reached a deal with fellow Democrats to vote on the infrastructure bill tonight, abandoning a key tenant of their position, which was to only vote for the infrastructure bill when the social spending bill also would receive a final vote.

Moments before the House began voting on the infrastructure bill, Jayapal wrote on behalf of her caucus that progressives would move forward with the infrastructure vote because they had accepted the commitment from moderates that the social spending bill would get a vote “no later than the week of November 15.”

But in her statement, Jayapal was sure not to say that everyone in her caucus would be joining onto this position.