Pelosi’s Move to Revive Paid Family Leave Meets Resistance From Manchin

(Bloomberg) -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is seeking to add paid leave back into President Joe Biden’s $1.75 trillion economic agenda after the provision was left out during negotiations to shrink the bill, but the move still faces opposition in the Senate.

Senator Joe Manchin, a key Senate holdout on the legislation, said he opposes adding paid leave to the tax and spending bill, which Democrats are doing using the budget reconciliation process to avoid a Republican filibuster. The West Virginia Democrat, whose vote is critical in the evenly divided Senate, said he is talking to Republicans about how to handle paid leave in a “bipartisan way.” 

Republicans Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Chuck Grassley of Iowa said paid family leave should be handled by committees and could get bipartisan backing. 

Manchin’s immediate pushback underscores just how fraught the negotiations among Democrats have become as Pelosi tries to muscle the measure through the House in the coming days. 

The proposal House leaders are offering would include paid family and medical leave based on need, an apparent attempt to get support from Manchin and other fiscal conservatives concerned about the program’s price tag. 

The leave proposal, according to a person familiar with the discussions, would be four weeks and it would be a permanent program, starting in 2024. Its price tag is around $200 billion, the person said.  

“The Ways and Means Committee crafted a policy that will finally give workers and their families the peace of mind of knowing that when disaster strikes, they can rely on paid leave to avoid total crisis,” Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal said in a statement. “We do this responsibly, fully paying for the means-tested program.”

Pelosi told House Democrats that she will send to the Rules Committee for a hearing Wednesday an updated a version of Biden’s agenda to allow the House to put the measure on the floor. But Pelosi stops short in a message to Democrats saying when that would happen. The message also says that a senator has informed her of opposition to a few of the items contained in the bill.

“It had been my intention throughout this process to put on the House Floor and pass a bill that would pass the Senate in the same form,” Pelosi said.

She said the House is seeking to have an analysis done by the Congressional Budget Office, which some moderates have said is a condition for their support. 

Pelosi has set a 2:30 p.m. strategy meeting for House Democrats.

Manchin and House moderates have demanded more analysis of the bill’s deficit impact before voting on the measure, which includes new spending on climate and social programs. Even if the House acts this week, it likely will be weeks until the Senate is ready for a vote.

“We ought to be very careful of the timeline,” Manchin said. “Don’t even set a timeline until we thoroughly, thoroughly vet this bill.”

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