One senator is demanding a vote on limiting President Trump’s options for a military parade, while several others want to ensure better treatment for chimpanzees who had been used in clinical testing at federally funded facilities.
Both parties are likely to be disappointed.
Though the Senate, after years of gridlock, is finally debating spending bills on the chamber floor, senators are finding they have little chance to actually rewrite the blueprints that emerged from committee.
Leaders say there may be room for rank-and-file senators to push their priorities another time, but not this week when the chamber is debating a massive bill combining funding for the Defense, Labor, Health and Education departments.
“There are a lot of people [who] would offer, and have offered, amendments to the appropriation bill that have some merit, but not on this,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, Alabama Republican.
Mr. Shelby and Appropriations Vice Chairman Patrick Leahy have made a concerted effort in this year’s spending debates to sidestep controversial policy “riders” in hot-button areas like abortion and gun control that could gum up the works.
But even less controversial suggestions still need to earn time for floor votes — and a single senator can become an impediment.
Sens. Bill Cassidy and Tom Udall are pushing an amendment this week that seeks to expedite the transfer of chimpanzees still housed at federally supported research facilities to a sanctuary in Louisiana known as Chimp Haven. The National Institutes of Health announced in 2015 it would no longer fund biomedical research on the animals.
NIH already has a plan in place to transfer all the chimps to the sanctuary by 2026, but the senators want faster action on getting the animals out of three labs and into Chimp Haven.
Mr. Cassidy said, however, that he’s not sure he’ll get a vote.
He said it made sense to bypass some proposals that senators “happen to dash on a piece of paper” and which would go “down in flames” if they actually got a vote.
But others deserve attention.
“If you have amendments which people have worked to try and build some sort of consensus [and] momentum for their passage with a broad understanding of what it does and how it impacts and it is germane to the process, then those should be voted on,” he said.
Other senators say the spending bills should be a chance to force a more robust debate about government waste.
Sen. Jeff Flake has introduced amendments that would zero out federal subsidies for fast food restaurants, as well as money that went toward studying robot bartenders.
Another Flake proposal would cap the amount of money the federal government could spend on Mr. Trump’s desired military parade next year at $15 million.
Some estimates had put the cost of such a parade at close to $100 million — spurring the administration to put plans on hold.
Even senior senators who are on the Appropriations Committee struggle to get amendments through.
Sen. Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, said he and Sen. Chuck Grassley have crafted an amendment to boost the disclosure of drug prices in commercials but one unnamed senator has created “many, many obstacles” to getting the measure to the floor.
“Pharma is hard to beat,” Mr. Durbin said, referring to the drug manufacturing lobby.
On Wednesday, Mr. Shelby also blocked an attempt by Sen. Chris Murphy, Connecticut Democrat, to force a vote on the status of U.S. military involvement in Yemen. Mr. Shelby said it was a worthy goal but he didn’t want the issue to bog down his bill.
Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has also been trying to secure a vote on an amendment that would zero out federal funding for Planned Parenthood — exactly the kind of hot-button issue Mr. Shelby says he’s trying to avoid on the spending packages.
“We’d rather it not be on this — we’re trying to pass the bill,” Mr. Shelby said.
Sen. David Perdue, Georgia Republican, said if lawmakers started their work earlier and managed things correctly, there would be more time for debate.
“One of the problems is when you go to regular order, if you have the level of amendments that we’re seeing — you want to have an amendment process but we have to have some sort of discretion among the members that some of this stuff is not germane, some of it’s not reasonable,” he said.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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