Trump Bill: Democrats & Lengthy Reading Strategy

WASHINGTON — Hours before a tumultuous nearing-midnight vote on President Donald Trump’s package of tax breaks, spending cuts and increased deportation money, a Republican senator stood on the chamber floor and implored the plan’s critics, “Read the bill.”

After the dramatic 51-49 roll call late Saturday, Senate Democrats did exactly that.

Unable to stop the march toward passage of the 940-page bill by Trump’s Fourth of July deadline, the minority party in Congress is using the tools at its disposal to delay and drag out the process.

By midday Sunday the Senate had rounded its 12th hour, more than halfway through the clerk’s reading of the foot-high bill. There were hours still to go.

”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,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said after vote. ”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.”

The slow-walking points to a difficult days ahead.

Republicans, who have control of the House and Senate, are closer to passing Trump’s signature domestic policy package, yet there is a long and politically uncertain path ahead to get the bill to Trump by the Friday holiday.

Republicans remain reluctant to give their votes, and their leaders have almost no room to spare, given their narrow majorities. Essentially, they can afford three dissenters in the Senate, with its 53-47 GOP edge, and about as many in the House, if all members are present and voting. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. had sent his colleagues home for the weekend.