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WASHINGTON \u2014 Senate Republicans voted early Thursday morning to approve a budget measure that would pave the way for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol funding without any Democratic support.
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The vote was 50-48 after a marathon session last night. GOP Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Rand Paul, R-Ky., joined Democrats in voting against passage of the resolution.
The budget has no force of law on its own, but it instructs committees to begin drafting a bill to authorize $70 billion in funds for ICE and Border Patrol while bypassing a filibuster.
It could also pave the way for House Republicans to pass the bipartisan bill approved by the Senate to fund the rest of the Department of Homeland Security, ending the record months-long shutdown. House GOP leaders said they wanted to see action on the budget before taking up the Senate-passed DHS bill. The budget measure also still needs House approval.
Months of bipartisan negotiations to end the DHS shutdown have faltered as Republicans rebuffed demands from Democrats to put limits on immigration enforcement operations following the killings of two American citizens in Minneapolis by immigration enforcement agents.
As a result, Republicans now plan to use whats known as a \u201cbudget reconciliation\u201d process to fund those immigration enforcement agencies without any of the policy changes demanded by Democrats, such as mandating body cameras and limiting raids in sensitive locations like schools and hospitals.
\u201cWe have a multi-step process ahead of us, but at the end Republicans will have helped ensure that America\u2019s borders are secure and prevented Democrats from defunding these important agencies,\u201d said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.
Democrats accused the GOP of upending the appropriations process to protect \u201crogue\u201d ICE agents and of failing to lower costs for average Americans.
\u201cAmerica, this is what the Republicans are fighting for: To maintain two unchecked rogue agencies that are dreaded in all corners of the country instead of reducing your health care costs, your housing costs, your grocery costs, your gas costs,\u201d Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the floor.
The Senate \u201cvote-a-rama\u201d process featured unlimited amendments \u2014 the price of bypassing the 60-vote threshold. Democrats used it to buttonhole GOP senators into tough votes \u2014and extracted some politically notable defections.
The first amendment, put to a vote by Schumer, sought to \u201ccreate a point of order against reconciliation legislation that does not lower out-of-pocket health care costs.\u201d Republicans voted it down and it failed 48-50, but it won the support of Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska.
Both are politically vulnerable, facing some of the most competitive re-election bids of any Republicans this fall.
Another amendment by Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., who is running for re-election in a divided state, would \u201ccreate a point of order against reconciliation legislation that fails to address the practice of insurance companies stepping between patients and their doctors to delay or deny access to care.\u201d It failed 49-49, but won the votes of Collins, Sullivan and Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo.
Republicans will need to hold 50 of their 53 members to pass the bill that comes out of the process.
Sahil Kapur is a senior national political reporter for NBC News.
Brennan Leach is an associate producer for NBC News covering the Senate.
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