U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks during a press conference inside the Capitol building on Wednesday, June 18, 2025. Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden is at right. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — The next hurdle for Republican leaders in the U.S. Senate and the “big, beautiful bill”: Democrats — and possibly a few of their own members — in a marathon voting session will make last-ditch attempts to change the tax and spending cut measure.
The vote-a-rama, as it’s known, is expected to begin sometime during the last full week of June as Congress heads toward the Fourth of July recess. It will likely begin in the afternoon and last overnight into the next morning. Senators will debate and vote on dozens of amendments attempting to revise the massive legislation that could have an effect on nearly every American.
Democrats, who have 47 votes in the Senate compared to 53 for Republicans, plan to zero in on Medicaid, taxes, corruption, policies that could raise energy costs and proposals that would increase the deficit, according to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and the committee chairs tasked with drafting pieces of the package have spent weeks combing through the House-passed bill to figure out what needs to be altered to avoid divisive floor votes.
They’ve rewritten numerous policy proposals to comply with the strict rules that go along with the complex reconciliation process and are now trying to work out disagreements among GOP senators that could doom or complicate a final deal.
The goal is to avoid a protracted debate over core GOP provisions in full public view once the vote-a-rama begins, though some senators are already predicting votes on GOP amendments.
‘A potentially messy process’
Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, who has raised concerns about the bill’s impact on rural hospitals, said he hopes GOP leaders reach a consensus before vote-a-rama but didn’t rule out offering his own amendments if they don’t settle their disputes.
“Amending it on the floor, that’s a potentially messy process,” Hawley said. “I would hope that we could get to a good place before that. But we have to fix the rural hospital issue.”
Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville said he will likely propose amendments during floor debate, though he declined to say what specific policies he’d seek to change or eliminate from the package.
“Yeah, we’ll have some,” Tuberville said. “And we’ve got them all, we just haven’t turned them in yet.”
Thune said he and other negotiators are making “headway” toward consensus on the more significant provisions in the package, which in many respects is far from its final form.
“The meetings right now are on the major provisions in tax and health. We have sort of pre-litigated a lot of that,” Thune said. “But there are a lot of the other provisions in the bill, chapters in the bill that are still subject to going through the Byrd bath, and we’re in the process of doing that. But hopefully that’ll be done by early next week.”
Republicans are using the reconciliation process to pass their sweeping tax and spending cuts package through the Senate with just a simple majority vote, requiring them to comply with the Byrd rules.
That includes the Byrd bath — going before the Senate parliamentarian to explain how each provision has an impact on federal revenue or spending that is not “merely incidental.” Democrats then usually debate before the parliamentarian the various changes that don’t meet that threshold. The process is named after the late Sen. Robert Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat.
Once the parliamentarian rules what elements comply and which need to be removed, the bill can go to the floor and senators can trudge through vote-a-rama. Eventually, all 100 lawmakers will vote to approve or disapprove of the legislation.
GOP senators passing their version of the package would send it back to the House, which passed its version on a slim 215-214 vote earlier this year — and could make yet more changes in the Senate bill.
Democrats develop strategy
Democrats are hoping to highlight policy divisions among Republicans during the vote-a-rama. And even if they don’t succeed in getting any of their amendments adopted, several votes could serve as fodder for campaign ads during next year’s midterm elections.
Schumer said Wednesday during a press conference it would be “difficult” for Democrats to peel off at least four GOP senators from the rest of the party in order to get an amendment adopted, but said he’s hopeful Republicans will “vote with us on some things they’ve all said they’ve agreed with.”
Democratic senators, he said, have created a task force to reach out to Republicans on major issues in the package, including how it would impact rural hospitals.
“Many of these hospital administrators and employees are Republican,” Schumer, a New York Democrat, said. “In many of the rural hospitals, they are the largest employer in the county, and in most they’re the only supplier of health care. It infuriates the rural counties, and they tend to be Republican.”
‘It’s just a show, it’s a charade’
West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said she’s not concerned about having to vote on dozens of amendments.
“We’re here to vote,” Capito said. “As a creature of the House, we voted all the time on everything, so this doesn’t bother me. And, you know, just let the body work its will. If some changes are made, those will have to be dealt with. But I’m not worried about that.”
Arkansas Republican Sen. John Boozman said he expects the vote-a-rama will be “a very late night” and that he’s not planning to offer any of his own amendments.
As chairman of the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, Boozman expects to spend a considerable amount of time during vote-a-rama arguing against amendments seeking to change those provisions — including controversial cuts in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides food aid for lower-income families.
Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson said he plans to spend much of the vote-a-rama “going back and forth from my hideaway,” the ceremonial office that every senator holds in the Capitol building.
But Johnson cast doubt on actually being able to amend the package during that process, saying changes to the various bills that Senate committees have released need to be agreed to before then.
“You’ve got to get this before it ever goes to the floor. I mean, you’re not going to change things substantially or significantly with amendments. I know people have some idealized version that happens. It doesn’t,” Johnson said. “You’ve got to get these things in the base bill. Amendments; it’s just a show, it’s a charade.”
Vote-a-rama after vote-a-rama
The Senate has held two vote-a-ramas so far this year, and both demonstrated how difficult it is to change a piece of legislation.
The first all-nighter in February went along with Senate debate on its budget resolution and included votes on 25 amendments, with lawmakers adopting just two — one from Alaska Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan and one from Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee.
The second vote-a-rama took place in April just before the Senate voted to approve the budget resolution that ultimately cleared the way for Congress to use the budget reconciliation process to advance the “big, beautiful bill.” Senators debated 28 amendments, voting to adopt one change from Sullivan.
Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, ranking member on the Finance Committee, said he and staff on the panel will continue to parse through details of the panel’s bill, which Republicans just released Monday.
Wyden said he plans to hold several town hall meetings in GOP areas of his state over the weekend to gauge how residents there view the policy revisions Republican senators have put forward.
“We’ve had this bill for basically 36 hours. The first time I had it, I stayed up all night, so last night I got a little sleep,” Wyden said on Wednesday. “But on the plane, I’ll be working through it. And I expect to be working through it all through the next few days, except when I’m having these town hall meetings where I’ll have a number of questions.”
This post was originally authored and published by Jennifer Shutt from AZ Mirror via RSS Feed. Join today to get your news feed on Nationwide Report®.
