Vice President Vance cast the tie-breaking vote as Senate Republicans on Tuesday delivered a huge legislative victory for President Trump by passing his One Big, Beautiful Bill Act after hours of tense negotiations that lasted through the night.
The legislation appeared to be on the cusp of failing on the floor after Senate GOP leaders spent hours trying to hash out a compromise with Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an independent minded Republican, who worried that the legislation’s deep cuts to Medicaid and federal food assistance funding would hurt her home state.
At one point, Murkowski could be heard talking about the “vulnerable” on her phone as she walked briskly through the Capitol, avoiding reporters.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and his leadership team, including Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), thought they had secured Murkowski’s vote by crafting language to shield Alaska from the full brunt of Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) cuts.
But that initial plan was derailed by Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, who ruled the way the Republican SNAP waivers and enhanced Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP) were crafted to help Alaska violated the Byrd Rule, which determines what legislation may be included in a budget reconciliation package.
GOP negotiators spent the Monday night reworking the Alaska-targeted Medicaid and SNAP provisions in a way that could win approval from both the parliamentarian and Murkowski — an arduous process that took hours while the Senate plowed through a marathon series of votes that started at 9:30 Monday morning.
Republican negotiators and the parliamentarian agreed to rework the waivers for SNAP funding cuts so that it would apply more broadly than to just Alaska and Hawaii. The parliamentarian rejected the language targeting just two states.
The SNAP reworked provision would phase in food assistance funding reductions more slowly for 10 states, including Alaska, that have the highest error rate in delivering benefits.
Thune lobbied Murkowski throughout the night and early morning to support the bill.
The sprawling package still faces challenges in the House due to deeper cuts to federal Medicaid spending, an accelerated phase-out of clean-energy tax breaks and changes to a deal to raise the cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions.
Developing.