Senate recesses without passing reconciliation bill

Senate Republicans canceled plans on Thursday to take an immigration enforcement funding bill to the floor, hours before a marathon vote-a-rama was set to begin. The senators dropped their attempts to pass the bill before their Memorial Day recess after haggling over a final hurdle: ballroom security funding. 

The $72 billion reconciliation bill would fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, the two agencies excluded from Congress’ April measure funding the Department of Homeland Security. But the White House has aggressively pushed lawmakers to add $1 billion for the U.S. Secret Service, including funding for President Donald Trump’s East Wing ballroom security. The proposed language has divided senators. 

“You can see some Republicans just walking away from it as something they want no part of, and others are more supportive,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of nonprofit policy institute the American Action Forum and former director of the Congressional Budget Office. “I think it’s a more contentious issue that a lot of Republicans wish [Trump] would just leave till after the midterms.” 

The ballroom security measure could provide important talking points for both parties in the upcoming elections. Republicans are incentivized to deliver funding for ICE and border security for their constituents, and some want to show support for Trump’s ballroom. On the other side of the aisle, Democrat leaders have denounced the Senate GOP for prioritizing funding immigration enforcement during an affordability crisis in America—offering a preview for Democrats’ potential midterm talking points.  

“Now that the ballroom got included into the bill, it heightens the incentive for Democrats to use their opposition to the bill as a campaign cudgel in the upcoming midterm elections,” said John Kincaid, a government professor at Lafayette College in Easton, Pa. “So I think both sides hope they’ll get a midterm advantage out of it.” 

Cook Political Report identified affordability as voters’ defining issue for 2026, which makes conversations surrounding Trump’s gold-plated ballroom an easy target for Senate Democrats. In a Wednesday post on X, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote of the ballroom funding, “Let’s call it what it is: an insult to every American struggling to make ends meet. While Democrats are fighting to lower costs, Republicans are fighting like hell to spend billions in taxpayer dollars on Trump’s ballroom.” 

Also Wednesday, the Senate Budget Committee voted 11-10 to advance the bill, but remaining legislative hurdles and disagreements over the Department of Justice’s $1.776 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund caused senators to delay the process. Lawmakers plan to vote on reconciliation after the Memorial Day recess, with the House planning to take up the vote as well.  

“The House has no intention of doing anything other than taking whatever gets out of the Senate and voting on it,” said Holtz-Eakin. “So this really is the last hurdle.”

This is the first reconciliation bill Congress has tried to pass this year. Reconciliation processes allow Congress to fast-track legislation and avoid filibusters in the Senate through a simple majority vote instead of the standard 60-vote threshold. 

The Budget Committee controls the bills by sending House- and Senate-adopted reconciliation directives to specific committees who draft language to include in the legislation. Once the committees release their blueprints, the Budget Committee then pulls the package together before sending it to the chamber floors for voting and consideration. 

“In recent decades, it’s really become a device when one party controls both houses of Congress and the White House,” Kincaid said. He called reconciliation “purely partisan” and added that packages like these are typically short-lived because the next party to control Congress often overturns the last’s reconciliation bills. “So that’s the whiplash side of it, where we don’t have consistent long-term policy,” he said. 

This current package faces increasing pressure as Republicans anticipate the potential of a House majority flip in November’s midterms.

Republicans will need nearly unanimous support from GOP senators to reach the 50-vote majority needed to pass the bill. But at least four of the 53 Republican senators—John Curtis of Utah, Susan Collins of Maine, Rick Scott of Florida, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina—have expressed opposition to or serious concerns regarding the ballroom components of the budget reconciliation package. 

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., kickstarted the package’s legislative process on April 21 when he released a blueprint outlining a plan to fund DHS and finally end its historic shutdown. The Senate adopted the budget resolution following a vote-a-rama session on April 22 that lasted until around 3 a.m. 

Senate committees then went to work on their reconciliation bills. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said the final bill should only deal with ICE and CBP funding. But on May 4, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, released the first blueprint that included language surrounding funding for security adjustments and upgrades related to the White House ballroom project. 

Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough slashed that language, ruling that the inclusion violated Section 313 of the Congressional Budget Act, also known as the Byrd Rule. The rule limits unrelated legislative agendas, prohibiting senators from misusing reconciliation bills to expedite Senate procedures. 

After MacDonough’s ruling, Republicans seemed to be working toward drafting language that would meet her objections by saying only that the funding would enhance Secret Service activities. But, as Republican support dwindles, the chance that the language makes the final cut is quickly decreasing. 

“The House and Senate margins aren’t very large, so they can’t lose many votes,” said Holtz-Eakin. But if the Republicans were to close ranks, there is nothing that the Democrats could do to stop the bill other than turn it into a political liability for future elections, he added.

While reports suggest Senate Republicans are preparing to strip out the ballroom provision, the president’s sway, as demonstrated through the recent intra-party defeats of longstanding Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., might deter more Republicans from coming out against the finding. The upcoming midterms may provide stronger incentive to pass it. 

“Republicans want to get this bill through as quickly as possible so they can get on a campaign trail for the midterm elections,” said Kincaid. “The summer is coming up.”