By Ted Mann and Kristina Peterson 

The $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief bill returns to the House of Representatives this week, where lawmakers will gear up for a vote as soon as Tuesday on the package following narrow approval Saturday by the Senate that came only after concessions to moderate Democrats.

The Senate changes to the bill, which first passed the House Feb. 27 with more generous unemployment provisions, mean House Speaker Nancy Pelosi must hold together her slim majority caucus for a second House vote to send President Biden's top legislative priority to his desk.

The House is expected to hold a procedural vote on the bill Monday night, with final passage slated for Tuesday.

There were positive signals for Mrs. Pelosi and her leadership team over the weekend, when it appeared that key progressives in the House Democratic caucus were poised to support the relief bill a second time, though many expressed frustration and disappointment at the changes that curtailed the extension of unemployment benefits and blocked an effort to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.

"Despite the fact that we believe any weakening of the House provisions were bad policy and bad politics, the reality is that the final amendments were relatively minor concessions," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D., Wash.), who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus, a critical bloc of lawmakers on the Democratic left.

Mrs. Pelosi cannot afford many defections. The House version of the relief plan passed last month by a margin of 219-212, with two Democrats voting against it. The two no votes came not from moderates, Reps. Jared Golden of Maine and Kurt Schrader of Oregon.

Ms. Jayapal said the bill represented about 7% of U.S. gross domestic product, in line with what some economists believed would be needed to help the economy recover from the coronavirus pandemic. And she noted the lingering rift within the Democratic ranks about the failure by the Senate to include the minimum wage increase, which Mr. Biden has pledged to pass. An amendment offered by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) to the Senate bill to include the wage raise was defeated with eight Democratic senators voting no.

"We remain extremely disappointed that the minimum wage bill was not included," Ms. Jayapal said. "The minimum wage remains essential policy and we must deliver on this issue."

A provision on the minimum wage was left out of the Senate version of the bill after a February ruling by the Senate parliamentarian that it didn't comply with chamber rules for the aid measure. In the Senate, as in the House, the aid bill passed with no support from Republicans, who said the measure reflected Democratic preferences.

"This was not really about coronavirus in terms of the spending," said Sen. John Barrasso (R., Wyo.), in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday. "This was a liberal wish list of liberal spending, just basically filled with pork."

The margin for the Democratic leadership is even tighter in the evenly divided Senate, which enabled Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) to bring the debate on the bill to a halt Friday and eventually obtain changes in a $300 weekly unemployment benefit for workers laid off as a result of the pandemic. That benefit will now end in September, about a month earlier than provided under an agreement reached earlier among most Democrats.

Appearing on four political talk shows Sunday morning, Mr. Manchin praised the relief package. He also redoubled his opposition to calls from fellow Democrats, including a majority of his Senate caucus, who want to change Senate rules to allow more bills to pass with a simple majority vote, reducing Republicans' ability to block their proposals.

"I'm not going to change my mind on the filibuster," Mr. Manchin said.

Mr. Manchin also rejected for now the suggestion of carve-outs to Senate rules to allow other Democratic legislation, such as the House-passed election reform measure H.R. 1, to pass the Senate with a simple majority vote.

"I'm not going to go there until my Republican friends have the ability to have their say also," he said.

Congressional Democrats have tried to emphasize the achievement of getting the Covid-19 relief bill through the 50-50 Senate, which Democrats captured in a pair of upset special election wins in Georgia partly on the argument that the party could get serious legislation passed after years of gridlock.

"We passed the most significant bill in the history of the last 10 years and every Democrat voted for it," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal Saturday. "This was a very hard thing to get done."

But the debate laid bare the difficulty Mr. Schumer will face in getting his caucus to agree on policy. Even among senators who agree that the wage should be increased, disagreement remains. Mr. Manchin, for instance, has called for raising it to $11 an hour.

The wrangling over the Covid-19 relief bill could be an omen as Mr. Biden prepares to turn to other significant items on his first-year agenda. The administration has said it would start work on Mr. Biden's promise of a $2 trillion infrastructure package once the relief bill is signed.

And the changes made in the Senate to win support from lawmakers such as Mr. Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D., Ariz.) could imperil the relief package in the House if progressive Democrats decide to vote no.

Mr. Manchin said he would be open to changes that make procedural filibusters harder to employ.

"If you want to make it a little bit more painful, make them stand there and talk, I'm willing to look at any way we can," he said on NBC's Meet the Press. "But I am not willing to take away the involvement of the minority."

While Mr. Manchin said his talks with Republican colleagues had influenced parts of the relief bill, those overtures did nothing to alter the strict partisan split on passage of the bill, and on lawmakers' opinion of its contents.

Mr. Manchin on Friday demonstrated the leverage individual Democrats can wield by threatening to break from party leaders in such a narrowly divided chamber, even on those bills that can be passed with a simple majority.

He was pressed by fellow Democrats and received a phone call from Mr. Biden, but insisted on cutting back the length of the extra unemployment benefits.

Mr. Manchin said he hadn't extracted any promises from Mr. Biden in exchange for his vote on the bill.

"I've never done that," Mr. Manchin said on NBC's Meet the Press. "I just don't trade off that way. There's no need to."

Mr. Manchin has Mr. Biden's support, for now. White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield said on CNN's State of the Union that Mr. Biden doesn't support eliminating the filibuster.

"Look at what we have been able to do in the first six weeks that we have been in office with the filibuster in place," she said.

Write to Ted Mann at ted.mann@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 07, 2021 18:24 ET (23:24 GMT)