The Senate Pulled an All-Nighter

And what else Congress has been up to.

Good morning! It’s Friday, February 21, 2025. Congrats on making it to the end of the week.

Before we cover today’s news, I want to flag two podcasts I was on recently: Politics Politics Politics with Justin Robert Young and Never Close the Inquiry with Nick Hagen. Both episodes cover a lot of ground, and take a big-picture look at how I’m thinking about the Trump administration, one month in — so if you’re curious to hear the thoughts that don’t make it into the newsletter, check those out.

Justin and Nick are two great Substack voices — non-partisan, thoughtful, and knowledgeable — that I think many Wake Up To Politics readers would appreciate, so I hope you enjoy the episodes and check out their broader work.

Onto the news!

Remember pulling an all-nighter to cram for an assignment in school? Now imagine that you’re doing it with 99 of your closest friends (frenemies?), the median age of the group is 65 years old, and the assignment will never be turned in.

That’s what’s known as a Senate vote-a-rama. (Yes, they actually call it that.)

Under normal circumstances, Senate leaders keep a tight grip on the chamber’s schedule, which means it’s very difficult for a rank-and-file senator to get a bill of theirs voted on.

This is also true when amending pieces of legislation: the Senate Majority Leader always has the right of first recognition to offer amendments to a bill, which means they can simply introduce the maximum number of allowed amendments, and ensure that no one else gets a chance to try. (This is known as “filling the amendment tree.”)

The exception to this rule is when the Senate is debating a budget resolution. You might think Congress would pass a budget every year, in order to lay out how much money the country will be spending. However, in recent years, lawmakers have largely dropped their annual budgeting responsibilities; nowadays, a budget resolution usually only gets passed during united government as a way to unlock the reconciliation process.

Reconciliation allows a majority party to advance a bill with only 51 votes, as opposed to the 60 usually needed because of the Senate filibuster. But, to go through reconciliation, you have to first pass a budget resolution, which is essentially a blueprint laying out what the eventual reconciliation bill will do. And to pass a budget resolution, you have to hold as many amendment votes as senators want, without the limits that normally allow leadership to control the process.

It’s a rare legislative free-for-all, when senators can introduce proposals and actually get votes on them.

The Senate had one last night, as they debated the budget resolution that will — well, it will probably do nothing. We’ll get to that in a bit.

For now, let’s focus on the vote-a-rama. Senators introduced 1,131 different amendments; in the end, they inked an agreement to only vote on 25. (Remember what I said about the median age?) The whole thing lasted almost 10 hours.

Out of the 25, only two amendments passed:

• An amendment by Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) to “strengthen and improve Medicaid for the most vulnerable populations and strengthen Medicare for the years to come,” which passed 51-49, over opposition from all Democrats and Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and John Curtis (R-UT).

• An amendment by Lee to prevent federal agencies from finalizing major regulations without congressional approval, which passed 53-47, along party lines.

Everything else failed, including Democratic amendments on veterans benefits, Ukraine, avian flu, IVF, housing, and more. A proposal by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to “prevent tax cuts for the wealthy if a single dollar of Medicaid funding is cut” was rejected 49-51, with all Republicans opposed except for Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Josh Hawley (R-MO).

Everything on Capitol Hill is a mix of political theater and legislative substance, but vote-a-ramas are much more weighted towards the former. Budget resolutions are non-binding; there are important parts in there that tell committees how to structure the reconciliation package, but most of the measure — including the language Sullivan added about Medicare and Medicaid, and the language Schumer tried to add — is purely for show.

The goal is to force the other side to take a politically tough vote, not to influence an actual legislative outcome. There is an irony here: The only time that Congress allows freeform votes on any subject, it’s for amendments to a measure that lacks the force of law. Legislators give themselves the rare opportunity to actually vote on legislation — and they use it to score political points.

But last night’s vote-a-rama was doubly symbolic, because the budget resolution probably won’t even go anywhere. As you may recall, House and Senate Republican leaders are at odds over how to advance the reconciliation package that will make up President Trump’s first major legislative push. House leaders want the bill to boost border security, defense, and energy funding plus impose tax cuts. Senate leaders want to focus on tax cuts later, so the budget resolution that was under consideration last night was a $340 billion border, defense, and energy blueprint.

But it looks like House leaders have won the intraparty fight: President Trump called for “ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL” in a Wednesday social media post.

With all the amendments voted on, the Senate finally approved the budget resolution at 4:45 a.m. this morning, in a 52-48 vote. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), voting “nay,” was the only senator to cross party lines. For the reconciliation process to begin, both chambers have to pass identical budget resolutions; it’s highly unlikely the House will take up the Senate resolution (at least not without trying to pass its version first).

So, the Senate resolution will remain in reserves as a Plan B, in case House leaders fail to rally their members behind their more expansive Plan A. (Admittedly, consensus has so far been elusive.) There goes 10 hours of work, probably for nothing.

What else has Congress been doing lately?

• The Senate unanimously passed the TAKE IT DOWN Act, which would make it a federal crime to publish revenge porn (including AI-generated revenge porn), last week

• The House voted last week to pass the Agent Raul Gonzalez Officer Safety Act, which makes it a crime to flee by car from Border Patrol agents within 100 miles of the border. The measure passed 264-155, along party lines except for 50 Democrats voting in support.

• Both chambers approved a resolution inviting President Trump to address a joint session of Congress on March 4.

• The Senate approved a resolution “congratulating the Philadelphia Eagles on their victory in Super Bowl LIX in the successful 105th season of the National Football League.”

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More news to know

• Politico: The private GOP panic over the slash-and-burn DOGE firings

  • Columbus Dispatch: Ohio GOP Rep. Balderson says Trump's executive orders ‘getting out of control’

• ABC: Joint Chiefs Chairman CQ Brown on list to be possibly removed by Hegseth

• Los Angeles Times: Trump administration backtracks on eliminating thousands of national parks employees

  • CBS New York: CDC restores 9/11-related cancer research funding after DOGE's cancellation, officials say

• WaPo: Trump expected to take control of USPS, fire postal board, officials say

• Politico: Justice Department broadens Trump’s Jan. 6 clemency as it moves to drop gun cases

• AP: Netanyahu decries release of wrong body as a ceasefire violation. Hamas pledges to investigate

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The day ahead

• President Trump will deliver remarks to the nation’s governors, before having lunch with Vice President Vance, attending the swearing-in of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and signing new executive orders.

• The House and Senate will not meet today.

• The Supreme Court will hold its weekly conference.