3.2.2.2 – Legislative Function
3.1.2 – Key Features of the US Constitution
In the early hours of 23 April 2026, the US Senate voted 50 to 48 to approve a budget resolution. The vote clears the way for Republicans to spend around $70 billion on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol, without needing any Democratic support. Senate Majority Leader John Thune pushed the vote through after an all-night session. Only two Republicans, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Rand Paul of Kentucky, broke ranks and voted against. President Trump has set a deadline of 1 June for the full funding bill to reach his desk.
The vote follows a ten-week partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, which began when its earlier funding ran out. Democrats have been pushing for stricter rules on federal agents after two US citizens were shot dead by ICE officers in Minneapolis. Republicans have refused to accept those conditions. The Senate has already passed a bipartisan bill funding the rest of the department, but House Republicans are refusing to vote on it until ICE and Border Patrol are funded too. This has left thousands of DHS staff waiting for their wages.
The procedure being used here is called budget reconciliation. It was created by the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 and allows certain money bills to pass the Senate with a simple majority, avoiding the 60 votes normally needed to beat a filibuster. Because Republicans hold 53 of the 100 seats, the process lets them leave Democrats out entirely. During the overnight debate, known as a vote-a-rama, Democrats tried to add amendments on healthcare costs, food aid and insurance protections, but all were voted down. Two Republicans facing tough re-election fights, Susan Collins and Dan Sullivan, sometimes sided with the Democrats. Senator John Kennedy nearly held up the vote, arguing the SAVE America Act on voting restrictions should be included, but his push failed.
This vote shows how deeply divided Congress has become along party lines. Reconciliation was originally a narrow tool for budget changes, but in the last twenty years it has become the main way big laws are passed, from Trump’s 2017 tax cuts to Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. Using it here, to end a shutdown rather than reach a cross-party deal, suggests that working across the aisle is now the exception rather than the rule. When one party can govern alone with a bare majority, the careful, consensus-building role that Congress was built for begins to fade.