Democrats are turning a fight over immigration funding into a chance to needle Republicans on the cost of living, making “affordability” their narrow focus as the Senate begins its fifth “vote-a-rama” of President Donald Trump’s second term.
Senate Democrats are powerless to stop Republicans from advancing roughly $70 billion in funding for immigration enforcement, part of a two-step plan to reopen the Department of Homeland Security. But the convoluted rules of budget reconciliation, the party-line process Republicans are using to bypass the filibuster, are giving Democrats a rare chance to hold an unlimited number of votes, and they are promising to gum up the floor for hours with amendments focused on the rising cost of healthcare, electricity, and more.
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“We’re going to keep at it, and keep at it, and keep at it,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in a press conference teeing up the vote-a-rama, which is expected to begin at 8 p.m. Wednesday and stretch late into the night.
To be germane and have a chance at passing, those amendments would need to be focused on the underlying substance of the bill, which directs the Senate to craft legislation funding Immigration and Customs Enforcement and its sister agency, Customs and Border Protection.
But Democrats, lacking the votes to derail the process, see the vote-a-rama as a messaging exercise ahead of the midterm elections and are content to get Republicans on the record, whether the amendments pass or not.
In an appeal to their base, the prolonged debate is designed to show Democrats are standing in the way of agencies that became a political lightning rod after officers fatally shot two protesters in Minneapolis. It also forces vulnerable GOP incumbents to decide whether to stick with their party, or lend their support to amendments that, considered apart from the funding debate, are politically popular.
In his press conference, Schumer named amendments to lower the cost of child care, groceries, and housing as some of the votes reporters can expect as Democrats try to turn lingering inflation against Republicans. The dynamic is the inverse of 2024, when Republicans were able to capitalize on voter anxiety over a pandemic-era spike in prices to recapture the Senate and White House.
The vote-a-rama is also unfolding against the backdrop of skyrocketing energy prices due to the war in Iran.
Trump urged Senate Republicans to “stick together and UNIFY to get this done” in a Wednesday post on Truth Social.
The flip side of that debate is what Republicans claim is Democrats’ disregard for law enforcement and a desire to return to the looser border policies of the Joe Biden era. For a time, Democrats were negotiating guardrails on ICE designed to prevent more officer-involved shootings, but those talks with the White House fell apart last month.
Now, Democrats are vowing to oppose GOP attempts to pass the funding.
“You remember the cry to ‘defund the police’? Well, it’s back,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said in a Wednesday floor speech. “Democrats want to defund law enforcement, defund border security, and effectively reopen America’s borders to the flood of illegal immigration and criminal activity we saw under the Biden administration.”
In a nod to the immigration debate, Schumer accused Republicans of wanting to “shell out billions of dollars to Donald Trump’s private army without any common-sense restraints or reforms.”
The border is not the only topic Republicans plan to highlight as part of the vote-a-rama. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) is asking for a vote to defund Planned Parenthood beyond the one year provided in last year’s tax law.
Rank-and-file members have also weighed whether to make the SAVE America Act, Trump’s signature election bill, a part of the marathon session. The Senate had been debating the legislation, but the vote-a-rama has indefinitely sidelined that debate and stoked conservative frustration over its dim prospects of passing.
As of now, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), the SAVE America Act’s lead author, won’t force the issue, according to the Deseret News. Similarly, Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), a fiscal hawk, plans to let the focus be on immigration enforcement. He is crafting language to offset the cost of the funding but told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday that he will introduce it at a later step in the process.
Once the legislation, a blueprint that jump-starts the reconciliation process, advances later this week, Republicans will draft text for the bill and eventually hold a second vote-a-rama that actually approves the money for ICE and CBP.
SENATE GOP KICKS OFF $70 BILLION PLAN TO END-RUN DEMOCRATS ON IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT
In a brief interview, Thune nodded to the GOP “appetite to make this a bigger conversation” but has repeatedly argued to his conference that the legislation, which Trump wants on his desk by June 1, needs to stay narrowly focused on immigration enforcement to ensure it passes both chambers of Congress.
“I mean, it’s an opportunity to offer amendments, and I try to keep this place as open as possible and have an open amendment process,” Thune said. “So, we’ll see what our colleagues come up with.”
