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Before adopting Republicans’ budget resolution, senators engaged in an all-night parliamentary marathon that Democrats used to try to force the G.O.P. into politically damaging votes.
Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, working in his office as the Senate conducted a “vote-a-rama” on Thursday. Credit… Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times Published Feb. 20, 2025 Updated Feb. 21, 2025, 8:43 a.m. ET The Senate passed Republicans’ budget plan before dawn on Friday on a largely party-line vote, teeing up some key elements of President Trump’s domestic agenda.
But before senators approved their first major blueprint for accomplishing the president’s goals, they spent most of the night on a well-worn parliamentary ritual: the hourslong marathon of votes on proposals that will never become law (and were never intended to) known as a “vote-a-rama.” In a chamber where the average age is 65, the all-nighter brought senators to the floor for a binge of procedural motions and floor speeches delivered to a mostly empty chamber that served no legislative purpose — but did draw the political battle lines for a feud between Republicans and Democrats over the nation’s priorities and how federal money should be spent.
As senators slowly made their way into the chamber late Thursday afternoon, it was clear that Washington was in for a long night. Aides hauled thick briefing folders in one hand and caffeinated beverages in another.
Republicans were there to make the case for their budget resolution, which must be adopted to allow them to push through President Trump’s ambitious agenda. Democrats came primed to build their public case against Mr. Trump’s plans, and begin laying the groundwork to exact a political price from Republicans in 2026 congressional campaigns for supporting them.
“This is going to be a long, drawn-out fight,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, said as members of his party lined up to offer amendments to fight Mr. Trump’s fiscal agenda. “Democrats are going to hold the floor all day long and all night long to expose how Republicans want to cut taxes for billionaires while gutting things Americans care about most.”
Passing a budget resolution was a key step toward enacting Mr. Trump’s fiscal agenda, a process that has been complicated by competing strategies among House and Senate Republicans about the best way to accomplish the president’s priorities.
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