Civic Register
| 10.19.17

What the Heck is a Vote-a-Rama?

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What’s the story?

That wacky Senate, with their arcane rules and convoluted procedures. Perhaps the wackiest practice of them all is the ‘vote-a-rama’, which the Senate is scheduled to tee up for Thursday night.

What the heck is a ‘vote-a-rama’?

A ‘vote-a-rama’ is a marathon round of votes on amendments proposed to be attached to a piece of legislation, often budget bills. There’ve been vote-a-ramas held on farm bills, immigration reform bills, tax bills — and on the recent GOP healthcare bill.

The vote process is considered a vote-a-rama if more than 15 amendments are considered back-to-back. The highest number ever voted on is 44, but in some vote-a-ramas over 100 amendments have been introduced.

There’ve been 57 vote-a-ramas since 1977. Fun fact: Star Wars was also released in ‘77. What do you want to bet that every vote-a-rama senators and their aides wish they were in a galaxy far, far away from the Senate Chambers?

Who could blame them? Vote-a-ramas can go on for up to 12-13 hours. No amendment is allowed more than 10 minutes of consideration, with each side only given 30 seconds to present their case before a vote is taken. Aides and staffers are racing to make sure senators even understand what they’re voting on before they have to start all over with the next one.

Senators sometimes use the opportunity to offer amendments on controversial issues in order to force colleagues to go on record publicly, which keeps everyone on their toes.

It’s surprising anyone can stand up after hours of that, much less take a stand on anything.

Another fun fact: debate exists, but many believe the term ‘vote-a-rama’ was first coined by then-Senate Majority Whip Trent Lott (R-MS) in 1996. Also under consideration? ‘Vote-a-thon’. Doesn’t have the same ring, does it? Personally, I would have preferred ‘whack-a-mendment’ or ‘what-you-get-for-taking-all-those-recesses’, but that’s not very snappy.

Democrats are expected to limit the number of amendments they introduce in Thursday night’s vote-a-rama to no more than a couple dozen, according to Politico. They’re focusing their attention on forcing recorded votes on tax cuts to the wealthy, tax increases to the middle class, and cuts to Medicare and Medicaid in order to pay for budget increases.

What do you think?

What issues do you hope senators vote on Thursday night? And what ideas do you have for what the marathon process should be called? It took them nearly 20 years to coin ‘vote-a-rama'. Maybe it’s time for a twenty-first century update?

Tell us in the comments what you think, then use the Take Action button to tell your reps!

— Asha Sanaker

(Photo Credit: Wikipedia/ Creative Commons)

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