Congress
Senate trudges through vote-a-rama to ready a backup budget
Senate Republicans are on track to adopt their budget resolution in the early hours of Friday morning — a bid to show support for a “Plan B” if House GOP lawmakers can’t unite around their more expansive vision for a party-line package necessary to enact President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda.
Senators had voted on more than 10 amendments to their budget resolution before midnight, with plans to continue their “vote-a-rama” into the night. Democrats are using the marathon amendment process to score political points, hoping it will pay dividends in 2026.
“Families lose, billionaires win. That is the proposition at the heart of the Republican budget resolution,” the Senate Budget Committee’s top Democrat, Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, said on the floor. “We will see tonight that Democrats vote against irreparable increases in the deficit, and Republicans vote to explode the deficit.”
Democrats have so far used the amendment free-for-all to repeatedly force their GOP colleagues to go on the record against protecting Medicare and Medicaid. They also offered amendments on stopping hedge funds from buying single-family homes, supporting wildland firefighters and rehiring federal workers who have been fired in the first weeks of the Trump administration.
Senate Democrats will be able to hone their attacks on Republicans’ party-line ambitions later, when GOP leaders in the chamber craft the actual reconciliation bill to deliver on Trump’s biggest policy priorities. The budget resolution, just 62-pages long, merely lays out the framework for the final product, which would allow for $150 billion in new defense spending and up to $175 billion in new spending on border security, plus require billions of dollars in savings from education, labor, energy and agriculture programs.
“One can predict where they’re going based on the numbers that they’re providing. Sure does look like Medicaid cuts in what they’re pushing for, and not small Medicaid cuts either. Huge Medicaid cuts,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said in a brief interview.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer offered an amendment to block Republicans from enacting tax cuts if the GOP cuts even $1 from Medicaid. At one point, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) attempted to give Republicans some cover, putting forward his own amendment that would establish a deficit-neutral reserve fund relating to protecting Medicare and Medicaid. A Senate Democratic leadership aide was quick to counter, in a memo to reporters, that the proposal would in effect raise the age of Medicare eligibility and “carve out populations Republicans deem worthy and cut benefits for everyone else.”
Democrats also characterized the Senate Republican budget as a plot to bankroll tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, and even their GOP counterparts wanted to talk about taxes. But the plan doesn’t set up tax cuts, with Senate Republicans arguing that should be tackled later in the year in separate legislation.
“While we aren’t considering tax policy as part of this reconciliation package, it’s important to set the record straight at what’s at stake in the upcoming tax debate,” Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) said.
In some cases, Democrats were successful in getting Republicans to take the bait — to a point. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), for instance, backed Democrats in their attempts to allow floor votes on two amendments seeking to bar tax cuts for the wealthy in a final bill. Collins is a key target for Democrats in 2026, when she faces reelection.
While the budget measure GOP senators are working to adopt would lay the groundwork for a party-line package of energy policy, defense spending and border security investment, Trump is insistent on a more sweeping piece of legislation that also includes trillions of dollars in tax cuts. The House budget would lump all those priories together in what the president has called “one big, beautiful bill.”
Now the pressure is on House GOP leaders to show that they can rally enough support for that grander plan, which would require balancing the demands of fiscal conservatives with those of moderate Republicans unwilling to back deep cuts to safety net programs like Medicaid and SNAP food assistance.
Ultimately, Senate Republicans are bracing themselves for the distinct possibility they’ll have to do this all again in the not so distant future, if House Republicans are able to advance their own budget resolution next week that would achieve the more expansive bill Trump has explicitly endorsed.
But Republicans did have one diversion Thursday night: The intense USA v. Canada hockey game was playing on a television inside the GOP cloakroom.
Multiple Senate Republicans joined Sen. Bernie Moreno in calling for Rep. Max Miller to step down from office Monday amid domestic abuse allegations from the Ohio senator’s daughter.
Bernie Moreno — father of Miller’s ex-wife, Emily Moreno — said in a statement Sunday that Miller should not serve in the House soon after the House Republican did a livestream video attempting to defend himself from abuse accusations.
Many of Bernie Moreno’s GOP colleagues were quick to back him following the statement.
“I don’t know [Miller]. I haven’t read a whole lot about him, but if [Moreno] thinks he ought to resign, I’m supportive of that,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia said in an interview.
Miller has denied the allegations, which include pouring hot water on his ex-wife and holding a gun to her head. He has also denied accusations from his ex-wife that he broke his daughter’s collarbone.
Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas condemned Miller, adding, “He should resign. He should quit.”
“I don’t know Mr. Miller’s story, but I trust Bernie so much as a good friend, and his family has such high values,” Marshall said in an interview. “I couldn’t imagine them wanting this out in public. So to go through with this, it makes me think that they’re telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
The surge of support from Bernie Moreno’s Senate colleagues marks the first significant crack in a wall of GOP silence regarding the allegations against Miller. The skepticism from Miller’s own party will almost certainly weigh down the congressman’s already floundering campaign as he battles Democratic candidate Brian Poindexter to keep his Cleveland-area House seat.
Miller has until Wednesday to withdraw from the ballot and allow a crash primary to select a replacement.
Some Republican lawmakers stopped short of calling on Miller to withdraw or resign while expressing grave concern about the allegations.
“The accusations are very serious, and if there is truth to them, I am one who says that our elected officials need to be held to high standards,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said. “And certainly, when it comes to allegations of domestic abuse, child abuse, that’s not what we want in our lawmakers.”
A spokesperson for Miller did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In response to Moreno’s statement, Miller said on Sunday, “If my daughter said the same thing to me, I personally wouldn’t wait two years before holding him accountable.”
“You know this isn’t true and the only reason you are speaking out now is to hide from your own media circus,” he added in the post on X.
Notably still silent was GOP Sen. Jon Husted, Ohio’s other senator, who while leaving the Capitol Monday did not respond to reporters’ questions about whether Miller should resign.
Other Republicans in the Ohio House delegation are also staying quiet for now. Almost every House Republican from the state either declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment on Moreno’s statement.
The exception was Rep. Jim Jordan, who brushed off questions in a Thursday CNN interview about Miller but noted he was “a good man” and was recently campaigning for him.
Asked Monday if Miller should still serve in Congress following Bernie Moreno’s statement, spokesperson for Jordan Stefanie Farrell said, “As Mr. Jordan has said, it’s up to the voters of Ohio’s 7th District.”
Back in the Senate, other Republicans who were unaware of the situation declined to weigh in on the incident.
“I am not aware of the situation, so I don’t have a comment right now,” said Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who has been a leading GOP voice on domestic violence issues within the military.
But a steady drip of Republican senators said Monday evening they trusted Bernie Moreno.“It would surprise me if Bernie were being untruthful,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming said. “I guess I was surprised that it bubbled up to the public sphere, but I suspect that Bernie has got a beat on the situation.”
Sen. Jim Justice of West Virginia said he was unaware of the details of the allegations but that “Bernie’s a pretty level-headed guy.”
“I don’t know enough about the allegations, but like Bernie said, it sounds like he thinks he needs psychological help,” Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said, adding, “I trust Bernie.”
Chris Marquette contributed to this report.
Senate Budget Committee Republicans will meet Tuesday morning to talk about advancing a fiscal blueprint for a new party-line spending bill.
Chair Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) declined to say , in an interview Monday if he plans to introduce a resolution this week, noting that he was “working with leadership” and that the “first priority” is to pass a stopgap spending bill. Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), a panel member, said he didn’t expect the Senate to take up a budget resolution this week because “I don’t think my leadership wants to do it.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune hasn’t ruled out taking up a budget resolution but has been frank about the challenges it faces among GOP senators.
The Senate’s stopgap funding bill to avert a shutdown on Oct. 1 has cleared the first procedural hurdle, putting it on track for passage before lawmakers leave for the August recess.
Senators voted 89-4 to advance the measure, which would fund federal agencies through Dec. 11 at current levels, with some exceptions.
In order for a passage vote to happen ahead of the summer break, Senate leaders will need to strike a bipartisan time agreement to fast-track the measure to a final vote.
“It is a strong bipartisan piece of legislation, and I hope it will receive overwhelming support from both parties in the Senate,” Majority Leader John Thune said in a Monday floor speech.
Senate passage would up a potential battle with the House, because the stopgap measure the House passed two weeks ago has key differences from the Senate version. Identical versions must be passed to actually avert a shutdown at the end of the fiscal year.
The Senate measure includes language to bar the Trump administration from putting into action a plan to make political appointees in charge of approving grants, a prohibition that would last for the length of the stopgap. It also has language sought by Democrats to ensure Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement don’t get any new funding under the patch.
“The bill allows us to continue negotiating a budget that won’t leave working families behind,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Monday.
The White House did not respond to multiple requests for comment about if President Donald Trump supports the Senate measure. Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), an appropriator and administration ally, said Monday he had spoken to Trump earlier in the day and believed the president is “comfortable” with the Senate bill.
Jordain Carney and Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.
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