Despite Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi’s infamous line about needing to pass a behemoth spending bill “to find out what’s in it,” her fellow Democrat Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Saturday it was important to read President Trump’s entire 940-page “big beautiful bill” on the Senate floor before any debate on the legislation commences.
The exercise by the clerk could take 15 hours.
“I will object to Republicans moving forward on their Big, Ugly Bill without reading it on the Senate floor,” Schumer said on X. “Republicans won’t tell America what’s in the bill.
“So Democrats are forcing it to be read start to finish on the floor,” he said. “We will be here all night if that’s what it takes to read it.”
As Fox News explains, Schumer’s move is designed to allow Senate Democrats more time to parse through the myriad provisions within the massive legislative text. It also serves as a significant delaying tactic. Trump has said he expects the Senate to approve the bill before July 4th.
Once the bill reading is done, 20 hours of debate evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans will begin, likely early Sunday morning. Democrats are expected to use their entire 10-hour chunk, while Republicans will go far under their allotted time, Fox reported.
Then comes the “vote-a-rama” process, where lawmakers can offer an unlimited number of amendments to the bill.
The last time clerks were forced to read the entirety of a bill during the budget reconciliation process was in 2021, when Democrats held the majority in the Senate.
At the time, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., demanded that the entire, over-600-page American Rescue Act be read aloud. At the time, Schumer, who was then the Senate majority leader, objected to the reading.