At around noon on Tuesday, the U.S. Senate passed the One Big Beautiful Bill on a 50-50 vote with vice-president J.D. Vance breaking the tie. Republican senators Rand Paul of Kentucky, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Susan Collins of Maine voted against it. No Democrats voted for it.
The key to GOP victory was Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who has the last holdout. The bill will now go back to the U.S. House of Representatives where it will get a rough greeting. The House has two choices. They can pass the Senate version with no changes and send it straight to Donald Trump’s Oval Office desk for signature. Or, if they want or need to make any changes, they will need to send it back to the Senate for another round of votes.
In the latter case, they could create a bicameral commission to hammer out their differences. This would prevent them from ping-ponging the bill back and forth between the two chambers. I am actually pretty optimistic that the House cannot pass the version that was just approved by the Senate. I won’t go into all the reasons why I believe that here, except to say that the Senate bill is very unappetizing for anyone seeking reelection in a remotely competitive seat.
So, my prediction is that this will have to come back to the Senate. But, who knows? People want to go on vacation and the debt ceiling needs to be raised. Those two factors could work in the Senate version’s favor.
I’m particularly disappointed in Murkowski. But, keep in mind, she only supported the bill after extracting a load of concessions and perks for Alaska, and if those aren’t retained by the House, she could easily vote against the bill next time around.
In other words, this isn’t over. The fight goes on.
If Congress does recess without passing the bill onto Trump, it will only grow more unpopular as people have time to see how it will negatively impact them, their businesses and their communities. So, let’s hope we get at least that far.
