The Senate is starting a grueling marathon amendment voting session Monday morning, beginning the last leg of what’s been a dramatic and drawn-out ordeal to pass President Donald Trump’s domestic policy agenda.
Following hours of floor debate that began Sunday, the chamber is embarking on a so-called vote-a-rama shortly after 9:30 a.m. Monday, another long process featuring dozens of mostly ill-fated changes proposed by the minority that is loathed by aides, lawmakers, and reporters.
First, they’ll take care of a vote on whether an extension of Trump’s tax cuts should not be considered a new cost but just an extension of the baseline.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) previewed that Democrats will bring “amendment after amendment after amendment to the floor so Republicans can defend their billionaire tax cuts, so they can try to explain their massive cuts to Medicaid, to people back home.”
The record for the most number of amendment votes offered during a vote-a-rama was 44 in 2008, according to Senate records. Vote-a-ramas allow an unlimited number of amendments to be proposed in the run-up to final passage on certain budget-related resolutions and bills, such as Trump’s filibuster-skirting One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Each amendment receives a roll-call vote.
It was unclear whether Senate Democrats might seek to break that record as they make a last-ditch effort to dig in against the megabill that advances Trump’s priorities on tax cuts, energy, and the border. Schumer will offer the first amendment for Democrats with a vote on “no increase in costs for working families and small business to pay for tax cuts for billionaires,” according to his office.
“You’ll see me raise amendments [and] my colleagues raise amendments to try to slow this down,” Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) said. “It is a very partisan exercise, but the minority has a voice, and you’ll see us exercise it in the coming hours as we try to underscore what this means for people.”
As part of Democrats’ opposition, Schumer forced Senate clerks over the weekend to read aloud the 940-page bill in its entirety on the chamber floor, a stalling tactic that took nearly 16 hours from Saturday night until Sunday afternoon.
Most of the amendments are likely to be symbolic but could be politically damaging, as they only require a simple majority to pass. However, Republican leaders will have an opportunity at the end of the process to put forward a final amendment stripping out any changes that may make final passage less desirable.
Republicans will also offer some amendments of their own. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) told reporters she plans to offer one that reverts the top marginal tax rate to 39.6%, where it was before Trump signed his 2017 tax cuts into law.
As part of a series of last-minute concessions offered by Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) to holdouts in exchange for their support advancing the sprawling legislation Saturday night, Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) will receive an amendment vote on Medicaid financing.
It would end the 90% Medicaid reimbursements made by the federal government for states that expanded the entitlement under Obamacare after 2030. New adult beneficiaries who are childless and enroll after 2030 would see their medical cost reimbursements shrink to the lower Federal Medical Assistance Percentage, or FMAP, rate and force states to pick up more of the tab.
Changes to government-run healthcare for low-income Americans have been a particular point of contention between fiscal hawks, such as Scott, who wanted steeper cost-savings, and “Medicaid moderates,” such as Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Collins, who fought against further paring back the program.
It was unclear whether Scott’s amendment would pass, but Thune and other top Republicans support it.
A final vote is expected sometime on Monday following the vote-a-rama’s conclusion.
SENATE CLERKS COMPLETE MARATHON READING OF 940-PAGE ‘ONE BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’ AFTER SCHUMER DEMAND
If the bill passes the Senate, it will go back to the Republican-controlled House for consideration, where Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) faces hurdles with complaints in his GOP conference. House members will be recalled from recess in the hope of landing the measure on the president’s desk by his July 4 deadline.
Complicating matters is that the Congressional Budget Office said the Senate version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act will add some $3.3 trillion to deficits over the next decade, which the House Freedom Caucus said violates the cost-cutting agreements in the budget framework.
David Sivak contributed to this report.