Nancy Pelosi Invites Biden to Deliver State of the Union Address on 1 March

The 2022 State of the Union Address will become the first one in almost a century that is not held in January or February as is customary.

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has invited US President Joe Biden to deliver an annual State of the Union Address before the Congress on 1 March.

"Indeed, this past year has been historic: with the life-saving American Rescue Plan, once-in-a-century Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and, soon, the truly transformational Build Back Better Act!"

The US president normally delivers his address each year as per the Constitution's requirements. The 1 March date is unusual since for the past 99 years, US presidents have delivered in-person State of the Union Addresses either in January or in February. The delay might be linked to the busy legislative calendar of Congress.

Biden first spoke to the entire Congress last year in April, but it was not formally considered a SOTU and the upcoming 2022 State of the Union will be his first.

The SOTU contains POTUS' vision of the current state of the US, his recollection of accomplishments over the past year and his vision for the year to come, including legislative proposals for the Congress.

The Build Back Better bill and a series of legislation concerning voting rights are the two top legislative priorities for the Biden administration right now. Both face opposition from the GOP in the evenly divided Senate.

The Dems currently have no clear path for pushing Build Back Better forward due to the lack of support from Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, who remains dissatisfied with the bill's costs. The party is looking at changing the rules of the filibuster in order to pass voting rights reform bills without the backing of at least 10 Republicans. However, these efforts also face opposition from Joe Manchin, as well as another Democratic senator - Kyrsten Sinema.