Learn about the history of how the Senate tradition works.
The Senate is expected to kick off a marathon of voting on health care amendments — known as a vote-a-rama — at some point Thursday or Friday before getting down to final passage of a health care bill.
There’s a lot still up in the air for what’s ahead, but let’s take a dive into what a vote-a-rama really means.
The Senate defines it as 15 or more votes that happen on a piece of legislation in a single day (while vote-a-ramas are often done on budget resolutions, they can be about any piece of legislation, like the health care bill) . After the allotted time of debate on a bill expires, any senator can introduce an unlimited number of amendments to a piece of legislation. They then vote on the amendments, marathon-style. This can go on for hours.
In a typical Senate vote, senators have about 15 minutes or so to get to the floor to say aye or nay on a measure. But in a vote-a-rama, that time is compressed into 10 minutes, according to former Senate aide and George W. Bush administration official Keith Hennessey. Each side gets 30 seconds to talk about the amendment, and they then vote. Regular Senate votes also don’t generally take place back to back (to back) .
No. According to the Congressional Research Service, the practice was developed through custom.
While the CRS first dates vote-a-ramas to 1993, when the Senate was considering a budget resolution, the Senate historian’s office notes that the practice dates back to 1977. Though it wasn’t called a vote-a-rama at the time, senators voted on 18 amendments back to back on the National Gas Policy Act. Since then, there have been 57 vote-a-ramas.
The last one happened in January, over a budget resolution .
The Senate voted on 44 amendments to a budget resolution on March 13,2008.
Senators have complained about vote-a-ramas in the past, even holding a hearing in 2009 on how to reform the process, per the CRS. Because of how quickly the votes go, senators stay in or near the chamber, as do several staffers, who work as fast as they can to figure out what the amendments mean so they can tell their bosses how to vote.
You can thank former senator Trent Lott of Mississippi for this one. According to the Senate historian’s office, the first time the term was used was by Lott, then the GOP whip, back in 1996 in a UPI story. The name stuck. If you’re not a fan, consider this: «Vote-a-thon» was also in contention at the time.
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