The top priority for Senate Republicans this week will be to confirm Kevin Warsh to be chairman of the Federal Reserve, but much of the week’s work in the Senate will be off the floor, setting the stage for upcoming votes on the budget reconciliation bill.
The filibuster-proof reconciliation bill for immigration enforcement is expected to come to the Senate floor as soon as next week, and Democrats are planning to throw up roadblocks. In particular, they plan a procedural objection to a provision in the budget reconciliation bill that would provide $1 billion to the Secret Service for security upgrades related to President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom project on the site of the demolished East Wing.
“Let me make one thing very clear: Senate Democrats will not let them jam through this bill without making them answer for their endless cost hikes, health care cuts, and every dollar diverted from American families to Trump’s priorities,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a letter to colleagues on Monday morning. “Democrats will fight the Republicans’ reconciliation bill with every tool we have. We will bring Byrd Rule challenges. We will offer floor amendments. And we will force vote after vote to make the choice unmistakable: will Republicans vote to help American families — to lower costs, to restore savage health care cuts, to roll back cost-spiking tariffs — or will they vote to fund Trump’s gaudy ballroom?”
