Friday, April 9, 2021 Infrastructure Plan Scuttlebutt With Congress not returning to Washington, D.C., until next week, the White House’s American Jobs Plan proposal is still driving much of the political discussion in town this week. Of course, we still do not know what might be contained in an actual infrastructure bill, though we received a few clues this week regarding both process and substance surrounding the proposal. Reconciliation an option for Dems. This week, Democrats indicated that the Senate parliamentarian had given them the green light to further use the budget reconciliation process to pass legislation with a majority of votes, thus avoiding a filibuster that requires 60 votes to overcome. Traditionally, use of the budget reconciliation process has been limited to once per fiscal year (which roughly translates to twice per calendar year because the fiscal year runs from October 1 to September 30). Congressional Democrats used budget reconciliation to pass the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). The Senate parliamentarian’s ruling (which has not been released publicly) might allow Democrats to use reconciliation two more times before the calendar year is up.