Senate floor staff on Sunday concluded the out-loud reading to the chamber of President Donald Trump’s nearly 1,000-page tax and spending bill, fulfilling a demand by Democrats in a symbolic protest of the Republican legislation that was one step closer to final passage.
Clerks began reading aloud at 11:08 p.m. Saturday and finished the 940-page One Big Beautiful Bill Act about 16 hours later at 3:03 p.m. Sunday following an overnight session with rotating 30-minute shifts.
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Prior to its reading, Republicans voted 51-49 Saturday night on a procedural motion to advance the sprawling legislation after hours of negotiations on and off the floor, with GOP holdouts scoring last-minute concessions from leadership in exchange for their support. Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) were the lone GOP defectors.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said forcing the “radical bill” to be read aloud would bring transparency. In reality, it’s a procedural tool often wielded by the minority party that does little more than delay what is a messy and drawn-out budget reconciliation process being used by Republicans to advance the filibuster-skirting bill.
The maneuver was used by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) in 2021 when he forced the reading of former President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Act, which then-Majority Leader Schumer said at the time would “accomplish little more than a few sore throats for the Senate clerks.”
“Senate Republicans are scrambling to pass a radical bill, released to the public in the dead of night, praying the American people don’t realize what’s in it,” Schumer said Saturday night. “If Senate Republicans won’t tell the American people what’s in this bill, then Democrats are going to force this chamber to read it from start to finish.”
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Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) told the Washington Examiner that the tactic was part of Democrats’ “doing everything they can, using the procedures of the Senate, to create a better product.”
With the reading of the text completed, the Senate was one step closer to passing the megabill that centers on Trump’s domestic policy priorities for taxes, energy, and the border. Its Senate passage could come as soon as Monday after days of delay due to the parliamentarian, a nonpartisan Senate rules referee, determining that dozens of provisions violated the Byrd Rule. Republicans were forced to rework major portions of the bill so it could still advance with only a simple majority.
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The Senate will now have up to 20 hours of debate divided equally between the two parties, up to 10 hours of which Republicans could yield back to speed up the process. Then, senators will begin a marathon voting session known as a vote-a-rama that will feature votes on dozens of proposed amendments and may bring additional last-minute changes. A final vote is expected sometime on Monday.
If the bill passes the Senate, the measure goes back to the Republican-controlled House for consideration, where Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) faces hurdles with complaints in his own GOP conference. House members will be recalled from recess in the hope of landing the measure on the president’s desk by his July 4 deadline.
Complicating matters is that the Congressional Budget Office said the Senate version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act will add some $3.3 trillion to deficits over the next decade, which the House Freedom Caucus says violates the cost-cutting agreements in the budget framework.
David Sivak contributed to this report.
