A late-night agreement to save the country from a holiday government shutdown also unlocked another breakthrough.
The Senate agreed on Wednesday to go to conference on the defense bill that sets the Pentagon’s spending priorities for the coming year.
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The development came as the Senate sought to hold a vote on funding the government past a Friday deadline, but the objection of Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee, kept the chamber from moving forward.
Wicker wanted a formal start to negotiations over the National Defense Authorization Act but faced opposition from Democratic leadership.
Congress has in years past gone without such a vote, which names members of the conference committee. Three of the “four corners,” the top Democrats and Republicans on the Armed Services Committee in each chamber, had been satisfied with forgoing the process.
But Wicker demanded regular order to allow for a series of voice votes that direct the conferees to pursue certain policies in negotiations. The votes are nonbinding but give rank-and-file members another avenue for input in the process.
“Members have worked very hard and deserve an opportunity to float some ideas and get a public vote,” Wicker said. “Win or lose, make the case in the light of day and let senators vote.”
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) ultimately agreed to a dozen motions to instruct, as they are known, largely from Republican senators, and named the members of the Armed Services Committee as conferees. The chamber voted to proceed to the motions in a 90-8 vote following the passage of the short-term spending bill.
The Senate must now strike a compromise with the House on the NDAA, one of the few bipartisan pieces of legislation Congress passes each year. If lawmakers cannot come to an agreement by the end of the year, it would mark the first time in six decades they failed to do so.
The House is at odds with the upper chamber over an array of provisions, most prominently a repeal of the Pentagon’s abortion policy at the center of Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s (R-AL) military blockade. But the two sides have already begun laying the groundwork for a conferenced bill.
Both chambers passed their versions of the legislation in July.
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“We’ve been working very diligently over the last several months, really, with our House colleagues and with our Senate colleagues,” said Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), the chairman of the Armed Services Committee.
“We have not been waiting; we have been working,” he added.
