The Senate will begin its marathon voting session on Wednesday night to advance Republicans’ immigration enforcement funding package — and Democrats are preparing to make the process as painful as possible.
Senate Republicans are utilizing the budget reconciliation process to approve the funding, which allows them to pass the $70 billion package without Democratic approval. But using that process opens the floor up to unlimited amendment votes, known as a vote-a-rama, that Democrats plan to use to force their GOP counterparts to go on the record on a slate of contentious topics.
Top of the list: affordability issues.
“Republicans want to shell out billions of dollars to Donald Trump’s private army without any common sense restraints or reforms,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters on Wednesday. “Democrats want to put money in people’s pockets by lowering their costs.”
The Senate Budget Committee released the budget blueprint on Tuesday after weeks of negotiations, outlining plans to fund Customs and Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement for the next 3½ years.
Once the resolution goes through the Senate, it will be sent to the House for consideration. After that, the designated committees will get to work to draft the underlying bill.
But first, the resolution must survive the vote-a-rama. During that process, which has historically resulted in overnight voting sessions, Democrats will force votes on hot-button issues such as housing, health care, child care and other affordability issues.
Most of the amendments, if not all, are destined to fail. But Democrats are likely to use Republicans’ opposition as fodder in future campaign ads in the midterm elections.
Republicans can also introduce amendments, but it’s unclear if those will pass. GOP leaders have pushed party members to keep the resolution as narrowly focused as possible.
The budget resolution is part of a two-track process making its way through Congress to fund the Department of Homeland Security, which has been shut down for more than two months due to Democratic opposition.
The reconciliation package will solely fund CBP and ICE while lawmakers will also work toward passing a separate funding bill to fund the rest of the department through the end of September.
The second funding bill has already passed the Senate, but conservatives in the House have refused to approve it until a reconciliation package funding immigration enforcement is also approved.
The budget blueprint instructs committees to have their portions finished and submitted to the Budget Committee by May 15, two weeks ahead of President Donald Trump’s deadline of June 1.