Senate Republicans pushed a sprawling package of votes, covering government funding, a voter identification bill, a $95 billion budget resolution, and the confirmation of Attorney General Todd Blanche, through a marathon overnight session Friday into Saturday, over objections from within their own ranks.
GOP leadership hotlined the agreement Friday afternoon, giving senators until 3:25 p.m. EDT to object before locking in a schedule that would keep the chamber working through the night and into early Saturday morning. The plan cleared a path to address unfinished business before the August recess, but not without friction. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah formally objected to the time agreement, accusing leadership of structuring the deal to sideline his push for a vote on whether the Senate should recess at all.
The package bundled at least six major items: a continuing resolution to fund the federal government through December 11 and prevent a shutdown, a confirmation vote on acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, the SAVE America Act requiring voter photo identification, a $95 billion budget resolution that passed the House on July 22, a college sports bill, and an amendment from Sen. Ted Budd of North Carolina to strip a CR provision delaying a ban on hemp THC products.
The highest-profile vote of the night was the confirmation of Todd Blanche as the nation's 88th Attorney General. Newsmax reported the Senate voted 50, 49 early Saturday morning, largely along party lines, to confirm Blanche after a drawn-out confirmation fight that tested Republican unity.
Blanche had already been serving as acting Attorney General since President Trump fired Pam Bondi in April. His nomination stalled for weeks as Republican senators demanded concessions from the administration. Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina refused to advance Blanche out of the Judiciary Committee until he provided written proof that a controversial $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund had been formally rescinded. They also insisted on rewritten language in an IRS settlement to ensure that audit immunity for Trump and his family did not extend beyond the named plaintiffs.
Those demands were met in a deal reached the Monday before the vote. The Judiciary Committee then advanced the nomination, and Blanche cleared committee 12, 10, National Review reported.
The administration's earlier struggle to resolve the standoff with Cornyn and Tillis had consumed weeks of political capital. Even after the committee vote, the outcome on the floor remained uncertain.
Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana emerged as the decisive vote. He announced Friday that he would support Blanche after a phone call with the nominee and consultation with former Attorney General Bill Barr. Cassidy framed his decision as a practical one, not an endorsement of every action Blanche had taken.
Breitbart reported that Cassidy's support gave Blanche exactly the 50 votes he needed, with Sen. Mitch McConnell absent and two Republicans, Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, voting no.
Cassidy explained his reasoning on the Senate floor:
"Mr. Blanche is not perfect, and he will tell you this, but the choice is not between perfection and Mr. Blanche. It is between Mr. Blanche and another acting attorney general who may not run the department effectively under President Trump."
Collins had already broken with the party over the nomination. She and Murkowski cited concerns about DOJ weaponization and the anti-weaponization fund, which critics contended could be used to pay January 6 defendants.
Cornyn, who had been among the most vocal holdouts, ultimately backed Blanche. As he told reporters, per the Washington Examiner:
"I think the DOJ needs Senate-confirmed leadership to prevent some of the chaos and dysfunction over there, and I think Blanche is as good as you're going to get."
After the vote, Blanche posted on social media:
"I am deeply honored by the trust and confidence President Trump has placed in me to lead the Department of Justice as our great nation's 88th Attorney General."
While the Blanche confirmation dominated the political drama, the procedural fight over the recess itself drew sharp words from Lee. He had previously rallied seventeen other senators to delay the August break until the Senate passed the SAVE America Act, a voter identification bill introduced by Sen. Jon Husted of Ohio. The hotlined agreement included a vote on the SAVE America Act, but it did not include a vote on whether the Senate should adjourn for recess.
Lee saw that omission as deliberate. He posted on X:
"It's not lost on me that this agreement may have been designed to make it more difficult for me and others to force a vote on whether to adjourn or recess. Regardless, I'm not on board with that plan, not with all that's at stake and all that remains undone. For that reason, I have formally objected to the time agreement, contingent on scheduling a roll call vote (at 51) as to the part of the agreement that deals with adjournment with pro formas. We are United States senators. It is entirely reasonable to ask for a vote on this."
Lee's objection raised a direct question: should the Senate leave town with major legislation still unfinished? His demand for a roll call vote at a simple majority threshold put leadership on notice that at least one senator was unwilling to let the chamber slip out quietly.
The package also included a vote on the $95 billion budget resolution the House passed on July 22. That measure allocates $72 billion to the Armed Services Committee and the Intelligence Committee to address the Iran conflict, $12 billion to aid struggling farmers, and $10 billion for the House Administration Committee to distribute grants implementing the SAVE America Act.
The resolution contains no spending cuts, a fact that made its passage through the Senate unlikely. It requires only a simple majority, but skepticism from fiscal hawks within the GOP caucus left the outcome in doubt. If the resolution failed, the agreement called for Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky to be recognized for a motion to proceed to his alternative budget resolution, which would receive two hours of debate.
The SAVE America Act itself, Senate Bill 5271, would amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to require voters to show proof of photo identification. Husted introduced the bill, and House Republicans had already advanced related provisions through their own chamber.
The continuing resolution, designed to fund the federal government through December 11, served as the legislative backstop against a government shutdown. Budd's amendment to strip a provision delaying a hemp THC ban added another layer to the CR debate, though the outcome of that vote was not detailed in initial reporting.
Senators also planned a vote on whether to open debate on the Protect College Sports Act, a bipartisan bill aimed at setting new rules to stabilize college athletics and codify protections for student athletes. The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee had issued a press release on the legislation.
The late-night session followed a pattern that has become familiar in this Congress. Just weeks earlier, the Senate pushed through billions in ICE and Border Patrol funding during another marathon overnight vote, drawing sharp objections from Democrats.
Friday's session compressed an enormous amount of unfinished business into a single night. A government funding stopgap, a cabinet confirmation that nearly collapsed, a voter ID bill backed by at least eighteen Republican senators, a budget resolution with no spending cuts, a college sports overhaul, and a hemp regulation fight, all before senators could leave Washington.
The Senate got its votes. Whether it got its priorities straight is a question taxpayers will answer in November.
