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Reconciliation & Vote-a-rama
Yesterday, Senate Budget Chair Bernie Sanders released the framework for the FY22 $3.5 trillion budget resolution. While this is not policy or law, passage of the resolution kicks off the reconciliation process that may eventually contain policies like giving immigrants access to status and addressing gaps in health coverage. Specifically, the proposal includes reconciliation instructions which allows committees to consider these policies and allows Congress to pass them with only 51 votes.
The Senate is expected to vote on the budget resolution this week before breaking for August recess. All Senators will be able to offer amendments to the budget resolution during the upcoming voting session known as the vote-a-rama. Vote-a-ramas move very quickly--often with just minutes of consideration before a vote. This process is starting today and may go through Wednesday or Thursday.
Unfortunately, a number of Senators will offer anti-immigrant amendments including racist and xenophobic amendments to blame immigrants for the pandemic and other amendments to deny benefits and create other burdensome process for immigrants and their families. While not all of these amendments will come to a vote, there may be very little notice in advance of an anti-immigrant amendment that will be voted on. Senators must be prepared to vote quickly and strongly against the dangerous and harmful amendments. We are very concerned that many moderate Senators will vote for these amendments.
Organizations interested in reaching out to their Senators in opposition to anti-immigrant amendments can call or email their office today with a simple message: vote against all anti-immigrant amendments if they come to a vote. High level calls and tweets are also helpful. The time to do this is now and through the week--the vote-a-rama moves so quickly it may not be possible to respond in real time.
After the budget resolution passes, the Senate will begin crafting the specific policies that will be in the reconciliation package. It is likely that the Senate will be considering citizenship and we hope they will consider improving immigrants’ access to benefits. We also will need to ensure they do not add additional restrictions or barriers. This work will take place over the next few weeks and months and will include multiple opportunities to engage with members of the Senate and their staff to advocate for strong policies and programs for immigrants and their families. PIF will provide additional updates where there are moments to engage.
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