The Senate is in session today through Wednesday, before recessing for the week in advance of the Juneteenth holiday. The House is out until next Monday, June 23.
Senate Floor Schedule. The Senate will vote on the nominations of Gary Andres, Assistant Secretary at HHS, and Olivia Trusty, Commissioner of the FCC, this week and complete consideration of the GENIUS Act tomorrow (cloture on which was invoked by a vote of 67-27 last Thursday). No additional amendment votes are expected to occur on GENIUS. Most of the focus will rightly be off the floor as the Senate GOP preps to bring its version of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” reconciliation package to the floor by the middle of next week.
Senate Finance Committee Reconciliation Text. Later today (specific time TBD), the Senate Finance Committee is expected to release its long-awaited legislative text covering both the tax and Medicaid portions of the Senate reconciliation bill. The text will effectively operate as a Chairman’s Mark with likely placeholders for the deductibility of individual SALT and various Medicaid provisions as negotiations on those issues continue. It is possible that additional changes will be made over the course of the process, as various provisions are socialized within the conference and with the House and White House.
Senate Committee Process for Reconciliation. With the Finance text out, each of the ten instructed Senate Committees will have released text largely covering their areas of the bill. The closed-door parliamentary scrub known as the “Byrd Bath” will continue into next week, with GOP Leadership’s goal being to have text ready to go to the floor mid-next week. No committee markups are anticipated, meaning that changes to the House bill will be made via a managers’ amendment at the start of debate, including completing bracketed sections and any other changes made in the coming days. Proceeding to the bill itself requires a simple majority vote.
Senate Floor Process for Reconciliation. Once the Senate proceeds to the bill, debate is limited to 20 hours equally divided and can be yielded back by either side. While with consent amendment votes can occur during the debate time, it is likely all of the amendment votes will occur during the “vote-a-rama” process that follows debate. During vote-a-rama, Senators can offer unlimited germane amendments for votes, a process that begins in the early evening and runs into the very late/early hours. The GOP will work hard to defeat all Democratic amendments, and they may ultimately utilize the amendment process themselves to make any last changes to satisfy hold-out Senate Republicans and pass a bill the House can accept.
OUTLOOK/ANALYSIS. The Senate continues to march forward in its quest to both pass a bill next week and send the House a version it can accept without further negotiation. The trick will be threading the needle to both satisfy at least 50 Senate Republicans to vote for the bill, while making the changes as minimal as possible so as not to alienate House Republicans by upsetting the delicate balance in the bill that passed the House on May 22 by a razor-thin 215-214 vote.
The procedural gauntlet in the Senate is time consuming, but we note that thus far the Senate and House have both hit their marks throughout the process, and we think that will continue in the coming days. (If for any reason the Senate is not ready to go to the floor by the middle of next week, we anticipate they will forego the planned recess week and stay in session until they are able to pass a bill).
The outlook for quick passage by the House remains determined by all of the above, but should the Senate act next week, there will be significant pressure on the House to take the bill up expeditiously and send it to President Trump’s desk by July Fourth. But one step follows another, and multiple steps remain for the Senate to be able to first act next week. We will keep you closely informed of relevant developments.
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