Senator Lisa Murkowski, an overnight GOP holdout on the Republicans’ “Big, Beautiful Bill,” voted “yes” after winning several concessions on health care and food assistance to benefit her state of Alaska. Leaving the chamber, she told reporters that she hopes the House returns the bill to the Senate for further work.
“My hope is that the House is going to look at this and recognize that we’re not there yet,” Murkowski said. “I would hope that we would be able to actually do what we used to do around here, which is work back and forth in the two bodies to get a measure that’s going to be better for the people in this country and more particularly for the people in Alaska.”
The senator focused her criticisms on the bill’s deep cuts to Medicaid and food-assistance programs for her state.
“There was a lot in this bill that, believe me, my team was not enthusiastic about at all,” Murkowski said. “We have unique conditions in Alaska that make work requirements really hard. We have a high error rate when it comes to SNAP benefits that is going to penalize us.”
She secured changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, that she said would allow for “greater flexibility to the state.” The Senate also boosted the amount of money for rural hospitals to $50 billion over five years and complied with Murkowski’s push to remove a tax on solar and wind energy projects.
One of the final GOP holdouts, Murkowski negotiated overnight and huddled with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) in his office shortly before 4 a.m. She described her thought process in deciding to vote for the bill as “agonizing.”
“Did I get everything that I wanted? Absolutely not,” she said.
But voting “no” and killing the bill, she said, would have sacrificed several provisions that will be helpful for economic development in Alaska and would have undone the progress made to soften the effect of the bill on Medicaid recipients and rural hospitals in her state.
Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso credited Finance Chairman Senator Mike Crapo (R., Idaho), Senator Dan Sullivan (R., Alaska), Thune, and Vice President JD Vance for walking through each of Murkowski’s concerns to bring her around. Vance ultimately broke the tie to pass the bill Tuesday morning.
“JD, I’d call him our closer — the vice president coming in and just really spending time with her and talking to her,” Barrasso told reporters as he left the chamber.
Murkowski said the timeline on which the Senate passed the bill was “artificial” and added that she has urged Republican leadership and the White House to send the bill to conference rather than adhering to the original July 4 deadline set by President Trump.
“I held my head up and made sure that people of Alaska are not forgotten in this, but I think there is more that needs to be done, and I am not done,” Murkowski said. “I am going to take a nap, though.”