There was some Saturday night drama in the Senate yesterday. In the wee hours of the morning, the Senate had released its version of OBBBA, and then called a vote for later that afternoon on the motion to proceed with debate. (This timing was insensitive inasmuch as it forced Minnesota’s two Democratic Senators to miss the funeral of assassinated Minnesota politician Melissa Hortman.)

At the end of the 15-minute voting period, the tally was 46 ayes and 50 nays. As expected, Senators Paul (R-KY) and Johnson (R-WI) were no votes, as was Senator Tillis (R-NC) who is concerned about the Medicaid cuts’ impact on his state; while Senator Hawley (R-MO) had previously expressed similar concerns, he had announced his support for the bill prior to the vote. Four Senators were present but had yet to cast their votes: Lee (R-UT), Scott (R-FL), Lummis (R-WY), and Murkowski (R-AK). VP Vance was called in to be ready to cast a tie-breaking vote if needed.

After about an hour Murkowski caved, swayed perhaps by a new provision that exempts “non-contiguous states” from some of the Medicaid cuts (shades of the Cornhusker Kickback 15 years ago to win Senator Nelson’s vote on the ACA). It took another couple of hours after that for the other three holdouts to fall in line, as did Johnson, making the final vote 51-49 to proceed with debate.

Since then, the Parliamentarian has reportedly axed the non-contiguous states provision from the bill. What exactly is in the bill? Can it pass the Senate? And then can that bill pass the House? Will Trump get to sign his big beautiful bill on July 4th as he has insisted? It should be an interesting week.

We are leaving later today for vacation in Croatia. I may blog during that time, but then again I many not.