Senate inches toward a vote on Trump’s sweeping domestic policy bill

After a weekend of negotiations and delays, the Senate has kicked off its marathon voting session on President Donald Trump’s sweeping domestic policy bill.

As he went to the floor this morning, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said, “Hopefully we’ll know soon enough” if they have the votes to pass the bill.

Pressed on whether he thought Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski may vote against final passage of the package, now that key provisions for Alaska were stripped from the bill by the parliamentarian, he told CNN: “We’re working” on that.

More on the process: The first vote in the series is not an amendment, which will follow. Instead, it is over a procedural argument about how to calculate the costs of the bill. While this may seem dry, Republicans’ use of current policy baseline in their calculations will set a precedent allowing both parties to be much more generous when calculating costs of tax bills going forward.

Keep in mind: The “vote-a-rama,” as the marathon session is called, is an exercise in stamina, and a chance for Democrats to force as many votes as they please on politically difficult issues for Republicans, as well as for Republicans to force changes to the bill.

“Senate Democrats will put one amendment after another, again and again and again, to our Republicans on the record,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer declared on the floor ahead of the marathon vote series.