David Morgan, Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters] – Monday’s big White House ceremony will see President Joe Biden sign the $1 trillion infrastructure bill with Republican lawmakers. It is amidst a volatile political climate in America.

According to a source familiar with planning, officials are looking at holding the event in the spacious White House South Lawn. This is where the presidential helicopter land to host large numbers of people who want to commemorate one of President Obama’s greatest legislative accomplishments to date.

According to the White House, Biden will join lawmakers who wrote the legislation as well as “a diversity of leaders who supported its passage throughout the country,” including mayors and governors from both political parties and labor union leaders.

It was largely written by 10 Senate senators who were led by Senator Kyrsten Silena, Democrat, and Rob Portman. With the support of 13 Republicans, the House of Representatives approved the measure last Wednesday.

The government is expected to provide billions to local and state governments for the repair and expansion of broadband internet to millions of Americans.

It was not clear how many Republican legislators would be attending the ceremony. Aides say that Susan Collins, a Republican Senator, and Lisa Murkowski (a coauthor of the legislation) will be attending.

Senator McConnell, the Republican Senate leader said this week that he will not be attending the White House ceremony. He stated in an interview that he had “other things” to do. He did however express his support for the legislation.

“This bill was basically written in the Senate by a bipartisan group of Republicans and Democrats – all the House did last week was simply take up the Senate bill and pass it. This bill was crafted in the Senate, 19 Republicans voted for it, I was one of them, I think it was good for the country and I’m glad it passed,” he told WHAS Radio in Louisville, Kentucky.

HARASSMENT RISK

Biden had previously campaigned for the bill as a centrist Democrat. The bipartisan legislation was drafted by Biden and moderate Republicans who wrote it.

It became a political lightning rod as Republicans complained that the House Democrats delayed it’s passage in order to secure party support for Biden’s $1.75 billion social policy and climate change legislation.

Former President Donald Trump, along with some colleagues, targeted the 13 Republicans who disregarded the leadership instructions and refused to back the measure.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, Trump loyalist, described them as “traitors” who gave Biden victory in a vote opposed by enough House Democrats that it was defeated.

Many of these Republicans received threats to their lives and those in their families.

New York police in Nassau County, New York said Friday that they arrested and had charged a man with harassing Republican Rep Andrew Garbarino for making an alleged threat of death to Garbarino. Garbarino voted for this bill.

A county Republican Party censured Lindsey Graham, the Republican Senator from South Carolina (NYSE:), for his support of the bill.

Biden intends to take the victory lap immediately after signing. Biden will be visiting Woodstock Bridge, New Hampshire on Tuesday, to help promote the bill, as well as an electric General Motors facility in Detroit (NYSE:).