Senate

Senate Passes $4.5 Trillion Tax Cuts with $1 Trillion Medicaid Cuts, 12 Million to Lose Insurance

| Importance: 9/10

After a record-breaking vote-a-rama with the most amendment votes in Senate history, the Senate passed Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” 51-50 with Vice President Vance casting the tie-breaking vote.

The Congressional Budget Office confirmed the bill cuts over $1 trillion from …

Senate J.D. Vance Ron Wyden Congressional Budget Office tax-cuts medicaid healthcare wealth-transfer reconciliation
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Senate Passes Franken Amendment Banning Mandatory Arbitration for Sexual Assault Claims by Defense Contractors, 30 Republicans Vote to Protect Corporate Impunity

| Importance: 8/10

The United States Senate passed the Franken Amendment by a 68-30 vote on October 6, 2009, prohibiting defense contractors receiving more than $1 million in Department of Defense funds from requiring employees to resolve sexual assault, battery, or harassment claims through mandatory arbitration. The …

Al Franken Jamie Leigh Jones KBR Halliburton Senate +1 more accountability-crisis corporate-impunity sexual-assault mandatory-arbitration private-military +1 more
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FISA Amendments Act of 2008 Passes, Granting Telecom Immunity

| Importance: 9/10

Congress passed the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, fundamentally expanding the president’s warrantless surveillance authority while granting retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that participated in the NSA’s illegal domestic wiretapping program since 2001. The Senate voted …

U.S. Congress George W. Bush Senate House of Representatives Telecommunications Companies +2 more fisa-amendments telecom-immunity warrantless-surveillance congressional-legislation section-702 +2 more
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Congress Officially Defunds Total Information Awareness Program

| Importance: 9/10

Congress passes the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for 2004 (H.R. 2658), containing language that permanently terminates funding for the Total Information Awareness (TIA) program and orders the immediate closure of DARPA’s Information Awareness Office. The Senate had voted …

U.S. Congress Senate House of Representatives George W. Bush DARPA +4 more surveillance privacy legislation tia mass-surveillance +4 more
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