Biden tacks toward center: 3 recent moves that signal a shift

President Joe Biden began his presidency catering to the progressive wing of his party. With his job approval ratings sagging, he now appears to be returning to his more moderate political roots — at least in terms of messaging. It remains to be seen whether the shift is tactical, temporary and largely symbolic — or genuine, substantive and enduring.

This week, the president:

• secured the framework for an elusive bipartisan infrastructure bill
• told communities around the nation to spend excess COVID-19 funds beefing up their local law enforcement
• sent his VP (and "border czar") to the southern border to address the flood of illegal immigrants surging into the country on his watch.

The three signals of an incipient Biden course correction:

1. The Bipartisan Plan

Details of the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure plan are still emerging, but on Thursday Biden announced, "We have a deal." 

The deal was forged by a bipartisan group of 10 senators, including Republicans Susan Collins of Maine, Mitt Romney of Utah and the retiring Rob Portman of Ohio, along with Democrats Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia. A broader bipartisan group of 21 senators were involved in crafting an earlier framework for a deal. Prior to that, Biden spent days in talks with Republican moderate Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.) attempting to work toward a bipartisan compromise before ending the conversation without a plan to move forward.

Standing outside the White House, Biden and his negotiating partners acknowledged how difficult bipartisan compromise is to achieve. "No one got everything they wanted in this package," said Sen. Sinema. "We all gave some to get some." 

The $1.2 billion price tag for the deal, which will focus on new investments in roads, internet connectivity and other electric services, is far lower than Biden's initial $4 trillion jobs and infrastructure pitch.

There's caveat here — and it's a big one. While moderate Democrats may have given some to get the bipartisan framework coveted by the White House, more progressive Democrats have a plan to get it back — by stuffing a complementary budget reconciliation bill in the Senate with all the spending initiatives that were cut in the name of bipartisan compromise from the administration plan. 

Under the legislative strategy formulated by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the two bills — bipartisan infrastructure bill and budget reconciliation bill — are mutually contingent for Democrats: Both live, or both die.

"We can't get the bipartisan bill done unless we're sure we're getting the budget reconciliation bill done," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday evening. "We can't get the budget reconciliation done unless we're sure of the bipartisan [bill]." 

The White House is on board with Schumer's bundled approach. If the bipartisan deal "is the only thing that comes to me, I'm not signing it," Biden warned Thursday.

2. Refund the Police

On Wednesday, the president dealt a blow to members of his party who have rallied to the battle cry "Defund the police." In a speech from the White House, Biden said, "Cities experiencing an increase in gun violence are able to use American Rescue Plan dollars to hire police officers needed for community policing and to pay their overtime."

Biden said he attributes the significant rise in crime across the nation's major cities to police departments cutting their budgets because of the coronavirus pandemic. He neglected to address the wave of violent anti-police protests and riots that erupted in the wake of George Floyd's death last summer at the hand of Derek Chauvin. Nor did he mention subsequent Democratic efforts nationally and locally to defund the police.

Prior to the address, Biden met with local mayors and police chiefs for a closed-door discussion, following which he provided this summary: "We discussed historic funding for states, cities and counties and tribes for law enforcement and crime prevention ... they've not only had to fight this pandemic, they've also had to deal with an economic crisis that has decimated their budgets, forced them to cut essential services including law enforcement and social services."

The rise in crime, and in particular violent crime, means that it is "not a time to turn our backs on law enforcement or our communities," BIden said. Centrist Democrats scrambled away from the notion of defunding the police after a few weeks last summer when the issue appeared to be helping the Trump campaign. Meanwhile, true progressives, including all "squad" members, have held fast.

"'Defund the police' was just a terrible drag on the Democratic Party, longtime Democratic strategist James Carville recently said on a podcast. "It really was. Don't kid yourself." Biden, whose political memory stretches about as far back as Carville's, appears to be in agreement.

3. Czar to the Border

On Friday, Vice President Kamala Harris is off to the U.S. southern border to see for herself what countless members of law enforcement and Republican lawmakers have been speaking about for months.

Though some will say the vice president is a day (or many days) late and a dollar short, the real question is what motivated the administration to send Harris now, 90-some days after she'd been named the administration's point person on imigration.

Polling for both the president and the vice president is down, and the most recent Harvard Harris poll puts immigration right at the top of issues Americans think the president is handling poorly. Sending Harris and Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas to El Paso now is a way to appease — at least optically — the majority of Americans who see a border crisis and an administration that has failed to manage it — or even directly precipitated it with its relaxed enforcement regime. 

Will the visit translate into concrete action to address the crisis that has resulted in nearly 500,000 illegal migrants flooding across the border since late January? 

"I'm certainly hopeful," Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.) said on a recent edition of "Just the News AM."  

"Am I counting on it? I don't know."