A "vote-a-rama" (or "vote-arama", "vote-athon") is a procedure in the United States Senate that allows senators to propose an unlimited number of

amendments An amendment is a formal or official change made to a law, contract, constitution, or other legal document. It is based on the verb to amend, which means to change for better. Amendments can add, remove, or update parts of these agreements. The ...

to budget-related measures. After brief debate, the amendments are each voted on in rapid succession. Vote-a-ramas have been a fixture of

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

budget A budget is a calculation play, usually but not always financial, for a defined period, often one year or a month. A budget may include anticipated sales volumes and revenues, resource quantities including time, costs and expenses, environmenta ...

and

reconciliation Reconciliation or reconcile may refer to: Accounting * Reconciliation (accounting) Arts, entertainment, and media Sculpture * ''Reconciliation'' (Josefina de Vasconcellos sculpture), a sculpture by Josefina de Vasconcellos in Coventry Cathedra ...

bills since the 1990s. They are primarily a political messaging tool, as they allow individual senators to force votes on divisive or controversial amendments that would not ordinarily be allowed by the

majority leader In U.S. politics (as well as in some other countries utilizing the presidential system), the majority floor leader is a partisan position in a legislative body.

History

In the

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...

, vote-a-ramas have been a feature of the consideration of budget resolutions and reconciliation bills since the 1980s, and they became a fixture since conflict between the political parties intensified in the mid-1990s. The term "vote-a-rama" appears to have been coined by Senator

Trent Lott Chester Trent Lott Sr. (born October 9, 1941) is an American lawyer, author, and politician. A former United States Senator from Mississippi, Lott served in numerous leadership positions in both the United States House of Representatives and the ...

, then the Republican majority

whip A whip is a tool or weapon designed to strike humans or other animals to exert control through pain compliance or fear of pain. They can also be used without inflicting pain, for audiovisual cues, such as in equestrianism. They are generally e ...

, in 1996. The practice of vote-a-rama developed by custom through agreements between party leaders to accelerate voting on amendments after the 50 hours for debate allotted by the 1974 Budget Act expire. The rules for Senate vote-a-ramas in their current form were first agreed upon in 1993 when the statutory time expired on the fifth day of the budget resolution's consideration. Since then, each vote-a-rama including the amendments to be voted on has been regulated by

unanimous consent In parliamentary procedure, unanimous consent, also known as general consent, or in the case of the parliaments under the Westminster system, leave of the house (or leave of the senate), is a situation in which no member present objects to a prop ...

agreements negotiated between party leaders.

Procedure

Vote-a-ramas are possible because the Budget Act limits the time for debate but not the "consideration" of all budget measures, which means that every amendment is voted on. Nonetheless, amendments are disallowed if they are not germane to the bill (i.e. don't pertain to its subject matter) or violate the Byrd Rule. In the Senate, for each amendment, its sponsor and a designated opponent each normally have thirty seconds or one minute of speaking time to make their case. Thereafter, a ten-minute

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vote takes place, in which each senator is called on to say how they vote. The process continues until

cloture Cloture (, also ), closure or, informally, a guillotine, is a motion or process in parliamentary procedure aimed at bringing debate to a quick end. The cloture procedure originated in the French National Assembly, from which the name is taken. ...

occurs, which requires a 60-vote supermajority, or until no more senators wish to propose amendments, which can take a considerable time. For example, in the 2013 budget process, it took the Senate almost 16 hours to vote on 43 amendments. In the reconciliation process, the vote-a-rama is preceded by 24 hours of debate on the reconciliation bill and followed by the final vote.

Purpose

The purpose of most amendments in vote-a-ramas is not to make or change law but to be a part of the political messaging of the respective senator or party. This applies especially in the case of budget resolutions, because many of their provisions are not legally binding and are therefore a sort of suggestion to the executive branch or an instruction to the respective Congressional committee. Vote-a-ramas are attractive for this purpose because it is otherwise often difficult and cumbersome for an individual senator to obtain a floor vote on a proposal. Amendments in vote-a-ramas can be a way to test support for a particular issue. They can also be used to signal support for an issue popular with the sponsor's political base, or parties may use them to try to force the other party's members to take a position that is unpopular or divisive in their party or constituency, so that their vote can later be used against them in political campaigning. Apart from that, vote-a-ramas are also an important vehicle for the minority party to ensure that their amendments receive a vote. That is because in the normal course of business the majority can often prevent a vote on amendments offered by the minority by procedural maneuvers such as " filling the amendment tree."

Statistics

The Senate website lists 61 vote-a-ramas that have occurred since 1977, defined as "legislation the Senate voted on 15 or more times in one day". The one with the most roll call votes (44) was the

budget resolution The United States budget process is the framework used by Congress and the President of the United States to formulate and create the United States federal budget. The process was established by the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, the Congress ...

of March 13, 2008.{{Cite web, title=U.S. Senate: "Vote-aramas" (1977 to Present), url=https://www.senate.gov/legislative/Votearama1977present.htm, access-date=2021-08-13, website=www.senate.gov The

Congressional Research Service The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is a public policy research institute of the United States Congress. Operating within the Library of Congress, it works primarily and directly for members of Congress and their committees and staff on a c ...

notes that in the Senate, "between 1993 and 2009, an average of 78 amendments to the budget resolution were offered per year during floor consideration, with an average of 26 (33%) of those being debated and disposed of before the expiration of time", and the remainder being disposed of in the vote-a-rama.

References

Parliamentary procedure Legislative branch of the United States government