The Big and Beautiful Bill begins a marathon vote in the Senate today
President Trump requires the Republicans to complete the legislation of the “Big, Beautiful Bill” before July 4th. The “Big, Beautiful Bill” will start a marathon “vote-a-rama” in the Senate today (30th). The House version of the bill was sent to the Senate for deliberation after it was passed at the end of May. The bill that the Senate has amended and passed must be sent back to the House for a vote before it can be sent to Trump for signature and implementation.
When the Senate voted on the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” on the evening of the 28th, two Republican senators voted against it, and it finally passed with 51 votes to 49 votes. Democratic senators used delaying tactics and asked to read the bill clause by clause on the evening of the 28th. It took nearly 16 hours for the Senate staff to read the full text of the more than 900 pages of the “Big, Beautiful Bill” in the chamber and enter the debate stage. The two parties have a maximum of 10 hours of debate time each.
After a short break this morning after the debate, the bill will start a “continuous vote”, with an unlimited number of amendments to vote on, and the voting process may last until the evening of the 30th.
CBS analyzed that in the 2026 midterm elections, the Democratic Party will use the “continuous voting” amendment voting opportunity to force Republican senators to express their views on several sensitive topics of the “Big and Beautiful Act” and include their speeches in the official record of the meeting.
The Republican Party promoted the legislation of the “Big and Beautiful Act” through the budget reconciliation process. According to the Senate’s rules of procedure, the budget reconciliation bill can be passed with a simple majority of 50 votes, without reaching the absolute majority threshold of 60 votes, which is conducive to avoiding the Democratic Party’s “filibuster” boycott. So far, the Senate Democratic Group has almost no mechanism to block the bill.
According to a report released by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on the 29th, the “Big and Beautiful Act” will increase the national deficit by nearly 3.3 trillion in the next 10 years.
The Republicans have 53 seats in the Senate and the Democrats have 47 seats. When the bill goes to the full house for a vote, the Republicans only have 3 votes to vote against it. If the votes for and against are tied, Vice President JD Vance will cast the key vote.
Democratic Virginia Senator Mark Warner said on the 29th that the “Big and Beautiful Bill” will become a “political albatross” for the Republicans, and the bill may not even be supported by Republicans. He said in an interview with the “Face the Nation” program that many Republican friends know that the bill is risky, “Let’s see if the senators who privately expressed concerns about the bill have the courage to stick to their ideas.”
