With Democrats planning to kick off voting on the Inflation Reduction Act on Saturday (August 6), Republicans have promised to make it a long weekend, saying that they will make the process “like hell,” despite that doing little to prevent the bill from being passed.
At a press conference on Friday (August 5), Republicans expressed their frustration at Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ.), two centrists who had been holding out on the passage of the bill.
Addressing reporters, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) questioned what the vote-a-rama would be like, before answering: “It’ll be like hell.”
Graham also expressed his belief that Democrats “deserve this” and that although he admires Manchin and Sinema “for standing up to the radical left at times,” he lambasted them for “empowering legislation that will make the average person’s life more difficult.”
To pass the package, Democrats have embraced a complicated procedure known as budget reconciliation. The process would help them advance significant parts of President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda, which could never get off the ground because of Sinema and Manchin’s opposition.
In 2017, Republicans used the same process to pass Trump’s signature tax law, something Democrats can use to bypass the 60-vote threshold and pass the bill with a 50-50 Senate.
But if Democrats plan to use the bill reconciliation process, they will also have to endure a vote-a-rama, a voting marathon that allows Senators to influence legislation before a final vote by offering a series of amendments.
Republicans plan to use this marathon session to push Democrats on challenging votes focusing on areas of “energy, inflation, border, and crime” that they can use as ammunition in the upcoming midterm elections.
