They were desperately trying to pass a procedural motion on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to set up a final vote to approve it. The political stakes couldn’t be higher.All 212 House Democrats quickly voted no, and at one point in the middle of the night, the roll call was stuck at 207 for and 217 against, with five Republican no votes and 8 GOP lawmakers not yet voting. Most of the eight were threatening to reject the bill.
The vote was technically scheduled to be 15 minutes. It lasted seven hours and 23 minutes.There certainly was a lot of time to kill. Some members had adult beverages, others ordered take-out, and many caught cat naps. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), a devout Southern Baptist and evangelical Christian, stopped by the House chapel to pray.Days earlier, the Senate had narrowly passed its version of the OBBBA, and now House leadership had to convince its members to accept the changes made to the legislation and send it to President Donald Trump’s desk by July 4. Getting House members to back a Senate measure is usually difficult, especially on high-profile legislation.House Republican leaders worked on the holdouts, as did Trump, through many phone calls. It looked like a dire situation, but House GOP officials insisted to the Washington Examiner that they were confident. They had come too far to fall short. And after all, there’s no limit on how long a vote can be, so they were all in, no matter how long it took.The math, however, was difficult. Leadership could afford only two no votes, so three of the five had to reverse their votes, and all of the eight Republicans who hadn’t hit the button needed to back the legislation. It would take a while.Summoned to the White House
