The Senate adjourned for a five-week recess early Saturday morning after passing a bill to fund the federal government until Dec. 11 and confirming Todd Blanche as attorney general.
Senate Republicans also agreed to set aside — for the moment — President Trump’s demand to approve another budget resolution to pave the way for tens of billions of dollars in new military spending and to pass the SAVE America Act.
Senators will return to their home states or take congressional delegation trips abroad for the next several weeks and are not due to return to Washington until Sept. 14.
Passage of the continuing resolution to fund the government past the election takes a lot of pressure off senators in both parties ahead of the September work period as both Democrats and Republicans were eager to avoid stumbling into another government shutdown before the midterm election.
The stopgap funding measure passed 90 to 6, with Sen. Darline Graham (R-S.C.) voting present because the legislation includes a death benefit for her brother Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-S.C.) heir.
The funding bill was held up by an intense fight within the Senate GOP conference over a provision added at the behest of the White House to delay the implementation of a ban on intoxicating hemp-derived products that Congress enacted in November.
Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) insisted on voting on an amendment to strip the hemp-related language out of the bill but the Senate voted 61-32 to table it.
The Senate later voted largely along party lines to narrowly confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general.
Two Republicans, Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), voted against Blanche, citing their concerns about whether he would maintain the Justice Department’s political independence.
Collins said that Blanche’s actions as deputy attorney general had “further eroded the department’s independence” and Murkowski said the “politicization” and “weaponization” of the Justice Department has “accelerated” under Blanche’s leadership.
Blanche’s nomination was saved from derailment, however, when Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who had been undecided for weeks, announced on Friday morning that he would vote yes.
“All considered, I will vote for Mr. Blanche,” Cassidy he said on the Senate floor, adding with a tone of resignation: “I will be criticized for this vote. What’s new?”
The Senate voted 50-49 to confirm Blanche, with Collins, Murkowski and all Democrats voting against him.
A key development came late Friday evening when Senate conservatives relented on their demands that the Senate stay in session until Republicans pass a budget resolution to set up a third budget reconciliation bill to fund the Pentagon and the SAVE America Act, Trump’s No. 1 legislative priority.
Senate Budget Committee Chair Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) agreed to postpone action on the budget resolution until after the August recess after it became clear that it probably would not get 50 votes to advance on the Senate floor.
Johnson and conservative Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) spoke to Trump Friday evening to get his approval for a plan to allow the Senate to adjourn without action on either measure.
Johnson, Lee and Scott agreed to postpone action on the budget resolution and further debate of the SAVE America Act, which would require people to prove citizenship when registering to vote and show photo identification to vote, after holding a two-hour meeting with GOP colleagues just off the Senate floor.
“There was a concern whether or not it could actually pass, the budget resolution, tonight,” Johnson acknowledged.
Conservatives instead got Thune and the rest of their colleagues to agree to set up a vote on a bill sponsored by Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio) to require voters to show photo identification in federal elections.
That measure later failed to advance on the floor. It received 52 votes but fell eight short of the 60 needed to move forward.
Lee indicated that he would not force Republican colleagues to hold a roll-call vote on a politically sensitive adjournment resolution in order to start the recess because he was satisfied with the agreement to vote on the Husted proposal.
“We’re not in a position right now where we have the wherewithal to pass it right now,” he said of the SAVE America Act.
Thune was able to schedule a series of rapid, overnight votes that allowed the Senate to begin the recess after reaching a deal with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to postpone action on a bill crafted by the Senate Commerce Committee to establish rules and standards for the compensation and recruitment of college athletes until September.
A disagreement over whether to hold votes to proceed to the college sports bill and then approve it with a 60-vote threshold had delayed a broader agreement on speeding up the procedural timeline for the continuing resolution and Blanche had stalled Senate action for much of Thursday and Friday.
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