Late-night votes are an age-old pressure tactic for congressional leaders in both major political parties. Yet overnight sessions have become increasingly common in Congress as the House and the Senate struggle to govern.
Iran 's top diplomat set to travel to Pakistan, raising hopes for renewed talks to end war with USTrump's planned appearance bringing renewed scrutiny to annual correspondents' dinnerWhat Hispanic adults, men and young Americans think of Trump, according to an AP-NORC pollQB Fernando Mendoza, edge rusher David Bailey, running back Jeremiyah Love go 1-2-3 in the NFL draftTaylor Swift and Bad Bunny top Spotify's first all-time most streamed artists listTrump threats against Iran are a boon for prediction markets, including some backed by his sonHow 2 men claimed an absurd record by driving an old 3-wheel car the length of AfricaViral phenomenon in Argentina has young people identifying themselves as animalsOne Tech Tip: Logging on at a cafe?
Privacy and security guidelines for remote workersDr. Oz announces a 50-state audit of Medicaid program oversightTrump signs order to speed review of psychedelics, including the controversial drug ibogaineOne Tech Tip: Don't use rice for your device.
Here's how to dry out your smartphoneTo make hosting less stressful, strive for connection and not perfection'If my people': Here's why the Bible passage Trump read aloud is so potent and polarizingFauna y vegetación en el paisaje radiactivo de Chernóbil muestran la resiliencia de la naturaleza
Privacy and security guidelines for remote workersDr. Oz announces a 50-state audit of Medicaid program oversightTrump signs order to speed review of psychedelics, including the controversial drug ibogaineOne Tech Tip: Don't use rice for your device.
Here's how to dry out your smartphoneTo make hosting less stressful, strive for connection and not perfection'If my people': Here's why the Bible passage Trump read aloud is so potent and polarizingFauna y vegetación en el paisaje radiactivo de Chernóbil muestran la resiliencia de la naturalezaThe moon emerges from the clouds over the U.S. Capitol dome in Washington, Dec. 2, 2025. Frustrated and seemingly exhausted Wednesday, Kennedy said he wanted more time to debate his amendments to a budget resolution to fund immigration enforcement agencies.
But he had another complaint.
“Frankly I am worried about the health of some of our members,” Kennedy said as 9 p.m. approached. “Not that they’re in bad health, but it’s hard to stay up all night. ” More than 6 hours later, just past 3:30 a.m., senators wrapped up another marathon voting session on amendments and filed out of the chamber, dazed, tired and resigned to soon doing it all again.
It’s a complaint as old as the Congress, with leaders in both major political parties often turning to the torturous grind of an overnight session to exhaust members, overcome objections and push legislation to passage. But it’s a scenario that is playing out again and again, nearly business as usual, as the House and the Senate fracture and careen from one crisis to the next.
Lawmakers say it’s a symptom of a broken Congress that leaders are increasingly forced to govern in the dead of night.
“The dysfunction is getting worse,” said Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, who has been in Congress for 14 years. Lawmakers have become “less mature,” he said, as a growing number act only in their own self-interest and hold up bills or delay proceedings.
“It’s not a healthy lifestyle,” Cramer said, for the country or the lawmakers. “There’s less concern for the team effort. ”In the last few weeks, Congress has repeatedly debated pressing national issues at night — leading to confusion and turmoil in both chambers.
In late March, Senate Republicans struck a deal with Democrats to reopen most of the Department of Homeland Security, including the Transportation Security Administration, while Democrats continued to block money forafter the shootings of two protesters in Minneapolis. It was a breakthrough, and Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.
, passed the spending bill by voice vote — meaning there were no objections on either side — just past 2 a.m. Senators then flew home for a two-week recess, leaving final passage to the House. But House lawmakers who were asleep when the final Senate agreement was announced, saying they wouldn’t pass legislation that didn’t include funding for the immigration enforcement agencies.
Senators were then forced to figure out a new plan for reopening the department, and it remains unresolved. An equally contentious matter, the renewal of surveillance powers for federal spy agencies, also devolved into an after-hours affair. House GOP leaders kept members in session well past midnight last week while trying and ultimately failing to pass different versions of a foreign surveillance bill.
Scrambling to pass an extension of the law ahead of a Monday deadline, leaders eventually“Who the hell is running this place? ” said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. He said Republicans threw the bill together “on the back of a napkin in the back room in the middle of the night.
” “Just about everyone agrees that this is serious stuff, the kind of debate that Congress ought to have in the open,” McGovern said. Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles, a Republican and member of the House Freedom Caucus who opposed the leadership bills, said the outcome was predictable.
“We warned them that this was gonna happen,” Ogles said. “Unfortunately, here we are at 2 in the morning. ”The late-night vote series in the Senate this week was part of an arcane, complicated process called budget reconciliation that GOP leaders are using to try to fund the two immigration enforcement agencies that Democrats continue to block. It’s become the default mode of governing for majorities in Congress as bipartisanship on major issues fades away.
Reconciliation allows the Senate majority to bypass the filibuster and pass budget-related bills along party lines. First, though, they have to get through two lengthy series of votes — and that’s where the dreaded “vote-a-rama” comes in. The process is open-ended, which means lawmakers in both parties can offer as many amendments as they want to put the other side on record — or, as Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska describes it, “to make each other miserable.
” Leaders generally hold the votes in the middle of the night, as they did Wednesday into Thursday, in hopes of exhausting both sides and forcing senators to stay on the floor and vote quickly. But instead of waiting around between amendment votes, Murkowski walked back and forth between the chamber and her “hideaway,” a small office each senator has in the Capitol building.
“I’m at 14,291 steps,” she said just after 11 p.m., looking at her smartwatch, which was also telling her that her bedtime was approaching. She said if she couldn’t sleep, she might as well get more exercise.
Senators went through the same reconciliation process last year, in extremes, as they labored for weeks to pass President Donald Trump’s package of spending and tax cuts, which he dubbed The bill had barely enough Republican support to pass, and the Senate and the House held nearly back-to-back all-night sessions to pass it by Trump’s July 4 deadline. In the Senate, GOP leaders kept the long vote series open for hours on end as they worked to “It’s insane,” Murkowski said of the late nights.
“My mom always said, ‘Nothing good happens after midnight. ’”Overnight votes are certainly nothing new in Congress. The Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature health care law, passed the Senate in the early hours of Christmas Eve in 2009 after weeks of negotiations, just in time for senators to get home for the holidays. Countless other big bills have been passed in the dead of night, as well.
“Part of what’s changed here is there’s a lot of heavy lifting that you have to do to get a bill passed,” said Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, who has served in Congress since 1981, when he was elected to the House.
“I think at some point you’ve got to have a forcing mechanism, and one of the easiest is to stay up until the wee hours so that everybody is basically trying not to fall asleep on national TV. ” Democratic Sen. Andy Kim of New Jersey, a relative newcomer to the Senate elected in 2024, said there’s an eventual question of whether anyone is watching. In the middle of the night, he said: “Are the American people paying attention?
How do we get the message out? ”2026 NFL draft first round highlights: Mendoza goes No. 1, Rams draft Ty Simpson
John Kennedy Lisa Murkowski Donald Trump James Mcgovern Legislation United States Congress District Of Columbia General News Congress DC Wire Politics U.S. Republican Party Washington News Immigration Andy Kim U.S. Department Of Homeland Security John Thune Andy Ogles United States House Of Representatives Barack Obama Iran U.S. Democratic Party Washington News
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Desert street racing circus crushed — cops swarm late-night takeover, suspects hauled off and rides seizedFox News Channel offers its audiences in-depth news reporting, along with opinion and analysis encompassing the principles of free people, free markets and diversity of thought, as an alternative to the left-of-center offerings of the news marketplace.
Read more »
Trump Posts Late-Night Truth Social Rant Claiming Circuses Not Violent EnoughAmerica’s Finest News Source
Read more »
Mike Vrabel called out by 'First Take' stars over late-night NFL draft counseling decisionThe stars of ESPN’s “First Take” don’t understand the timing of Mike Vrabel’s counseling decision.
Read more »
Your Late Night Snacking Isn’t Doing Your Gut Any Favors, Study FindsEating late at night might worsen people's digestive problems, including constipation.
Read more »
Disney's Cancelled 8-Part Star Wars Series Officially Becomes a Late-Night Sleeper HitStar Wars logo
Read more »
Netflix's 6-Part Cult Thriller Becomes a Late-Night Streaming Sensationunchosen season 1
Read more »