Senate advances plan to fund Homeland Security in overnight voting

On Wednesday night, the Senate adopted a resolution to start the budget reconciliation process, which opened the floor to a period of unlimited amendments. The floor opened at 8 p.m., and senators debated amendments until around 3:30 a.m. Thursday morning in what’s known as a vote-a-rama. The Senate voted 50-48 to adopt a concurrent resolution allowing the Judiciary and Homeland Security committees to draft a reconciliation bill to fund immigration enforcement. If and when the committees do that, the bill would require a simple majority vote to pass. Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Rand Paul of Kentucky voted against the resolution while Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Mark Warner, D-Va., were absent and didn’t vote. 

GOP leaders in Congress on Tuesday said they planned to fund Homeland Security using the budget reconciliation process after a two-month stalemate with Democratic lawmakers left the government partially unfunded.

What is a vote-a-rama? The unofficial term describes how both parties try to use up as much floor time as possible to add amendments to a reconciliation agreement. For Republicans, this gave members time to add measures for other bills they want to pass, such as the SAVE America Act, a voting identification bill.

Democrats used the time to file a host of amendments on their priorities: reversing cuts to food assistance, increasing funding for school meal programs, and lowering health care costs. But unlike reconciliation, every amendment is subject to a 60-vote threshold. None met that in the all-nighter session.

Dig deeper: Read my report in The Stew about how reconciliation works and what’s in the blueprint.