Senators seem to be in for a long night as negotiations on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act continue behind the scenes.
As of 12:30 a.m. ET on Tuesday, the Senate had been in session since 9 a.m. the day before—but had made little progress on voting through amendments.
Multiple motions to commit the bill back to committee, which failed 47–53 along party-line vote, were brought to the floor and held open for hours after every senator had voted. The pace on the Senate side of the Capitol building was nevertheless frenetic amid the long day of voting.
While senators usually have answers ready for most any issue, Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) admitted he was having trouble keeping up with all the developments happening behind the scenes as negotiations on multiple high-profile amendments continued.
“There’s so many moving pieces,” he told reporters.
The spending legislation, which is being passed using the filibuster-proof reconciliation process, is the culmination of weeks of negotiations within the Republican Party and between the two chambers of Congress. It touches on practically every area of policy and the federal budget, from taxes to border security to federal entitlements.
Republicans are broadly united behind key elements of the package—extending President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, funding enhanced immigration enforcement, border security, and a series of other tweaks to federal policies and rules—but remain at odds over a flurry of others.
Over the weekend, the Senate advanced the budget reconciliation legislation over the first procedural hurdle in a 51–49 vote on June 28 as Republicans barrel forward to meet Trump’s July 4 deadline to pass the bill. Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) opposed advancing the bill.
Paul has tied his objections to the legislation’s increase to the debt ceiling. Where the House version would have raised it by $4 trillion, the Senate increases it by $5 trillion. The Kentucky Republican has said that he would vote for the package only if that provision were removed.
Aside from motions to commit, the Senate has voted down a handful of low-profile amendments throughout the day—but some of the most contentious issues were still being debated.
The Senate on Monday began the amendment process known as a vote-a-rama on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act ahead of the final vote on the bill.
The Senate took its first major vote on a major Republican amendment after midnight.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) stood up to introduce her amendment, which would provide funding to rural hospitals and similar facilities by raising taxes on individuals with incomes over $25 million a year. It was offered in response to fears that such facilities would be particularly adversely affected by Medicaid cuts in the bill.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) stood to oppose the amendment, calling it “a bandaid on an amputation.”
That amendment failed in a 22–78 vote.
Scott’s Medicaid Amendment
Foremost among these is Sen. Rick Scott’s (R-Fla.) Medicaid amendment, which would make additional cuts to the program alongside those already included in the bill.Ahead of a June 28 vote to advance the package, Scott and other conservative holdouts seemed prepared to tank the procedural motion. To prevent this, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) offered his backing for an amendment proposed by Scott that would further cut Medicaid through changes to a key funding mechanism.
Specifically, Scott’s amendment would reduce the federal government’s cost sharing for Medicaid from 90 percent to as low as 50 percent for enrollees made eligible for the program after Dec. 31, 2030. States would need to pick up the rest of the costs.
With several lawmakers already concerned about the extent of the cuts to Medicaid, the amendment seems to be on shaky ground in the upper chamber. Sens. Jim Justice (R-W.Va.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Tillis, and Collins have all expressed concerns about the extent of Medicaid cuts already in the bill.
In a speech on the Senate floor during the debate Sunday—coming hours after he announced that he wouldn’t be seeking reelection in 2026—Tillis spoke critically of the measure’s changes to Medicaid, saying that Trump had been “misinformed” about the nature of the bill’s cuts to the entitlement program.
The current draft of the bill imposes new 80-hour monthly work requirements for able-bodied adults to receive benefits. It also reduces the maximum provider tax states can charge hospitals and doctors to pay for their state Medicaid program.
Clean Energy Tax Credit Extension
Also being considered is an amendment proposed by Senate President Pro Tempore Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), and Murkowski to extend the clean energy tax credits included in the Inflation Reduction Act.Republicans have expressed divisions over the issue.
Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) told reporters that he was on board with the push ahead of the vote.
“Bottom line is, there’s a whole lot of businesses out there that [do] not have the power they need,” Rounds said.
He added, “We don’t have, right now, the ability to get the power without taking on and pushing some of the renewables that are already in the progress or very close to being in progress.”
Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), meanwhile, was critical of the push, saying it was too late in the process to add policies that would need a Congressional Budget Office rating.
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) told reporters that he opposed the amendment, citing the difficulties the bill was already expected to face in the House.
“I don’t think we want to go more liberal on something like that, particularly when there’s just not a good reason to,” he said.
