Senate

Senators pass guidelines for budget committee

by Jordain Carney - 04/15/15 7:56 PM ET

Senators laid out instructions for a budget conference committee Wednesday, using procedural votes to stress policy issues they want their colleagues to focus on.

Many of the votes were on things already included in the Senate’s budget resolution. For example, senators passed a motion from Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) telling conferees to require that the final budget grant Social Security and Veterans Affairs Department benefits to legally married same-sex couples.

{mosads}Other approved measures included a motion from Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) for conferees to include Bennet’s budget amendment, which was included in the Senate budget resolution last month, on the impact of man-made climate change on the Defense Department.

While most of the procedural measures passed overwhelmingly, Republicans blocked four Democratic proposals.

A measure by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on student loan reform, which would have been paid for by increasing taxes on higher earners, was voted down 45-52. A similar budget amendment from Warren also failed last month.

Republicans also blocked an effort by Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) to tell conference members to include her equal-pay measure, a measure from Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) on sequester relief, and one from Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) on blocking Medicare cuts.

The back-to-back votes, none of which are binding, kept senators on the floor for approximately three hours, in what staffers were calling a “mini vote-a-rama.”

Lawmakers will use the conference committee to reconcile the House and Senate budgets.

Tags Barbara Mikulski Debbie Stabenow Elizabeth Warren Michael Bennet Patty Murray Politics