Dear Friend,

Last week, extreme heat hit Washington and the Republicans’ Big Ugly Bill made its way through the Senate with many twists and turns. As if it wasn’t bad enough, the Senate Finance Committee made it worse by severely limiting states’ ability to provide health care to millions of Americans who depend upon Medicaid for their care.

Then the bill went through a “Byrd Bath.”

What’s a “Byrd Bath,” you ask? As you may recall, Republicans are considering the Big Ugly Bill under the reconciliation process, which allows Congress to pass certain budget-related legislation with a simple majority, avoiding the 60-vote threshold necessary to overcome a Senate filibuster. The “Byrd Rule” prevents extraneous matters from being included in a reconciliation bill. You can dive deeper on this process in this handy article. The New York Times has kept this running list of provisions of the Big Ugly Bill kicked out by the Senate Parliamentarian through the Byrd Bath process. You can dive even deeper into the Senate action here. 

As I write this article, the Frankenstein Senate version of the Big Ugly Bill is on the Senate floor for “vote-a-rama,” a series of votes on lots of amendments that will go late into the night.

If the bill passes the Senate — and Republicans are still scrambling behind closed doors to secure the votes they need — it must come back to the House for a vote on Senate changes. House members have been told to prepare for a vote as early as Wednesday.

Meanwhile, keep reading to catch up on my work in Congress this last week.

3-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THE DOBBS DECISION

Tuesday, June 24th marked three years since the Supreme Court’s devastating decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization overturned Roe v. Wade. Since then, we’ve seen an unprecedented wave of attacks on reproductive freedom. States across the country have enacted abortion bans and extreme restrictions that threaten women’s lives and force people to carry pregnancies against their will.

Nearly 29 million women of reproductive age — 43 percent of that population — now live in states where abortion is either banned or severely restricted. These bans have led to higher maternal mortality rates and infant mortality rates.

As a state senator, I proudly spearheaded passage of the Reproductive Health Protection Act in 2020, making Virginia the first state in the South to proactively expand abortion rights. As a result, today Virginia remains a safe haven for reproductive freedom and abortion care. Now, I’m fighting to expand reproductive freedom nationwide by cosponsoring the Women’s Health Protection Act and the Reproductive Health Travel Fund Act, both filed on the Dobbs anniversary.

As Chair of the Reproductive Freedom Caucus Abortion Rights and Access Task Force, I hosted members of the Congressional Tri-Caucus for a Storytelling Roundtable focused on the post-Dobbs landscape. We heard directly from Abortion Access Now and Free & Just Storytellers — people bravely sharing how these bans have upended their lives and limited their ability to make personal health care decisions.

Two of those storytellers, Kenya Martin and Kazsia Casey, are Virginians whose powerful stories remind us why we fight so hard to preserve reproductive freedom in our Commonwealth. The message was clear: reproductive health care is essential health care — and we won’t stop working to restore and protect that right nationwide.

“MAKING AMERICA HEALTHY AGAIN?”

Last week, the Health Subcommittee held a hearing on the fiscal year 2026 Health and Human Services budget request. Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. outlined the Trump Administration’s so-called vision to “Make America Healthy Again.” But behind these empty slogans are actions that do just the opposite — cutting livesaving programs, weakening public health infrastructure, and increasing barriers to care. 

Here’s what the Administration has actually done:

• Slashed funding to the National Institutes of Health, halting essential biomedical research.
• Disbanded the CDC.’s entire panel of vaccine experts as vaccine-preventable diseases like measles rise.
• Laid off hundreds at the FDA, undermining oversight of food and drug safety.

Watch this reel to see more of the disconnect between what Secretary Kennedy says he wants to do and what the Trump Administration and Congressional Republicans are actually doing.

Secretary Kennedy claimed to support legacy programs like Medicare and Medicaid. But if that’s true, he should be denouncing the Big Ugly Bill, which threatens to slash health care coverage for millions of Americans.

Stripping away health insurance won’t make people healthier — it will delay care, force families into emergency rooms, and drive up costs for everyone.

And that’s not all: the bill also guts access to SNAP benefits, making it harder for families to put food on the table.

That does not “Make America Healthy Again.”

On top of losing health insurance, many Americans would lose access to SNAP benefits, a lifeline for children in low-income families. That’s not just cruel: it’s shortsighted, and it will worsen health outcomes and widen disparities across the country.

During a roundtable this week, I got to talk with Salaam Bhatti from the Virginia Poverty Law Center on the deep overlap between SNAP and Medicaid and the harm these cuts would cause.

As we head into next week, I’ll be continuing to join my Democratic colleagues in fighting back against this Big Ugly Bill and to protect the health and dignity of every American.

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