The late-night vote marathon is aimed mainly at making the other party look bad in elections.
Republicans will have to go on record against giving minimum-wage workers a raise and potentially vote against a plan meant to defend pregnant workers from discrimination. Democrats will take sides on Iran’s nuclear talks, with Republicans daring them to side against Israel.
And each party is trying to outdo the other on how much it loves Medicare.
The Senate’s famous budget “vote-a-rama” on Thursday
won’t change any laws — far from it, it’s a daylong, only-in-Congress charade, the main purpose of which is to make the other party look bad and score political points.
And yet it has the potential to be among the most consequential days in Congress this year. Some of the roll calls are bound to show up in campaign ads and talking points and floor speeches: Just ask Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), who was attacked by her GOP opponent, Scott Brown, two weeks before her 2014 reelection for voting to “pave the way” for a carbon tax, a vote that was more than 18 months old at the time.
“So many attacks are not based in the substance of what we do here,” Shaheen sighed when reminded of Brown’s broadside.
Indeed, no other day of Congress elicits as many campaign advertisements as the vote-a-rama. Republicans are defending 24 seats in 2016, and the most vulnerable senators are already bracing for Democrats to find avenues of attack for the campaign trail.
“I doubt very seriously anybody’s going to be paying attention to this long-term. Listen, they will make stuff up if they don’t find something here,” said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). “I’ll never vote with my reelection in mind.”
Still, it’s been two years since the Senate considered a budget — and had the accompanying all-nighter — so lawmakers are licking their chops for a spectacle expected to go into the wee hours Friday.
“I am thrilled,” said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas. “The chance to let the Senate function and people get amendments that they can get votes on — that’s going to be extraordinary.”
At least some of them.
“I hate it more than — dislike it more than — any other day in the Senate because we’re going to be up until 2 a.m.,” grumbled Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
The budget is nonbinding, yet an important political exercise for Mitch McConnell’s hopes of a governing majority. The Senate majority leader was still hunting for votes just a day before the final roll call that will come at the tail end of the vote-a-rama, as several Senate Republicans said they were still undecided.
But first lawmakers have to survive the voting marathon that could number 100 amendments or more. Here’s POLITICO’s guide to which votes are likely to be remembered long after the Senate’s late-night session.
Iran Sanctions
A vote on Iran has repeatedly been put off in the Senate as the Obama administration continued negotiations aimed at curbing Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. Now, hawkish Republicans can finally force Democrats to go on the record.
Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) is proposing an amendment to the budget that stresses support for imposing a new round of sanctions if Iran reneges on a nuclear agreement.
“It’s a way to stop the shift against Israel,” Kirk said Wednesday. He added that he wants to “get a good solid vote, people to say that Israel is our best friend in the region.”
It’s unclear whether Democrats will bite. Kirk’s ally on Iran policy and perhaps the most hawkish Senate Democrat — Bob Menendez of New Jersey — is staying away from Kirk’s proposal in the budget fight and prefers to address it when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee takes up the issue in mid-April. But it all lays the groundwork for the bigger Iran fight that’s expected next month.
Democratic wish list: Pay equity, minimum wage and free college
Senate Democrats are reviving much of the agenda they used in 2014 to put Republicans in a tough spot on the budget. They forced Republicans to vote down a pay-equity proposal on Tuesday (though the GOP responded with its own equal-pay plan) and reject a measure to relieve student borrowers on Wednesday. But they’re saving the big one for Thursday: making the GOP reject a “substantial” raise in the minimum wage.
WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 19: U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) (L) speaks to members of the media as Speaker of the House Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) (R) listens after a leadership election at a House Republican Conference meeting June 19, 2014 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. House GOPs have picked Majority Whip Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as the new House majority leader and Scalise as the new majority whip. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Also on the Democrats’ list of amendment weapons: votes backing Obama’s plan for free community college, cutting taxes to help the middle class and discouraging discrimination against pregnant workers — particularly in light of Wednesday’s Supreme Court ruling on the issue.
Defense
The biggest chasm within the Republican Party has centered on how to fund the military — particularly with the 2011 budget deal that put hard caps on defense spending. Both the House and Senate try to get around the caps imposed by the Budget Control Act by relying on the Overseas Contingency Operations account — a fund intended for emergency war spending that doesn’t count against the limits.
But some Senate hawks want to go further. Republican Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Tom Cotton of Arkansas are pushing an amendment that would bring next year’s defense spending to about $697 billion for the next fiscal year with about $50 billion of which would be OCO money. By comparison, the current Senate budget stands at about $619 billion, with $96 billion in contingency funds.
The amendment vote could be pivotal to getting the budget across the finish line.
“A national defense is a priority,” said Rubio, who is mulling a run for president. He’s still undecided on whether to support the budget.
Health care and entitlements
The budget process presents one time lawmakers can vote to beef up Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security with no fiscal consequence — but if they vote entitlement amendments down, there certainly could be political fallout.
McConnell held up the first budget votes on Monday so GOP Sen. Rob Portman, who is up for reelection in the swing state of Ohio, could get to Washington and introduce his amendment intended to lower the Medicaid costs of caring for children. With unanimous approval on Tuesday, Portman’s proposal became the first GOP amendment to be successfully attached to the budget on the floor.
An amendment from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) aimed at protecting against Medicaid cuts drew only three dissenting votes, illustrating there’s little downside for lawmakers to appear on the right side of preserving entitlement programs. A more controversial amendment from Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) that would make it easier to reject bills that “would cut benefits, raise the retirement age, or privatize Social Security” failed on the Senate floor, but still drew the support of four Republicans up for reelection 2016, including Portman.
“In a case like that, I don’t know how they criticize me,” Portman said of Democrats. “I voted to preserve Social Security.”
Expect more of the same on Thursday.
Immigration
After the grueling Homeland Security fight fueled by GOP opposition to President Barack Obama’s executive actions on deportations, the budget will be the next battleground for senators to litigate the controversial order.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) wants a vote on an amendment that would deny the earned income tax credit to immigrants who are granted the protections Obama issued in 2014, which would stop deportations and give work permits to more than 4 million undocumented immigrants.
The Senate Budget Committee approved a provision very similar to Grassley’s proposal, so a vote on it may be redundant. Nevertheless, Republicans angling to put Democrats in a tough spot over Obama’s executive actions are exploring their options — such as a vote that would halt the administration from issuing the work permits allowed under the directives, which are currently on hold by the courts.
For now, Democrats don’t have any amendments planned on immigration. But that could change if the GOP brings hard-right immigration policies to the floor.
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