President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” appears to be in serious danger of stalling on the Senate floor after Montana Sen. Tim Sheehy (R) threatened to vote “no” on a critical motion to proceed to the legislation because it includes language to sell millions of acres of public lands.
“I oppose the sale of public lands and will vote no on the motion to proceed if it is included,” Sheehy posted on X on Saturday afternoon after Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told colleagues to expect a 4 p.m. vote to advance the measure.
The legislation includes language sponsored by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) directing the secretary of the Interior to sell between 0.25 percent and 0.5 percent of public lands to build more housing throughout the American West.
The provision directing the Bureau of Public Lands to sell millions of acres appears to exempt Montana, which was not among the 11 states named in the bill.
Three other Republican senators have said they will either vote to proceed to the bill or final passage of the bill for various reasons: Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.).
Thune can only afford three defections and still advance the bill. Republicans control 53 Senate seats.
Tillis told reporters after a closed-door meeting with colleagues Saturday that he will vote against the bill because of steep cuts to federal Medicaid spending and urged GOP leaders to return to the Medicaid changes passed by the House last month.
“I’m going to vote no on motion to proceed and on final passage,” he said.
“I did my homework on behalf of North Carolinians, and I cannot support this bill in its current form,” Tillis said in a statement released by his office.
He said the bill “would result in tens of billions of dollars in lost funding for North Carolina, including our hospitals and rural communities.”
“This will force the state to make painful decisions like eliminating Medicaid coverage for hundreds of thousands in the expansion population,” he warned.
Johnson said he’s voting “no” on the motion to proceed because he just got his copy of the legislation at 1:23 am and hasn’t had a chance to read it carefully.
He wants Senate Republican leaders to add substantially bigger spending cuts to the bill and has proposed targeting mandatory spending programs outside of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
“I’m not going to vote for motion to proceed today. We just got the bill. I got my first copy about 1:23 in the morning, this morning,” he said on “Fox & Friends Weekend.”
Paul is a hard “no” vote because the legislation includes a provision to raise the debt limit by $5 trillion.
Thune said his leadership team would know when the vote is held where exactly his colleagues stand on the bill.
“We’ll get to the vote here before long and we’ll answer all those questions,” he said when asked about the threatened “no” votes from Sheehy, Tillis, Johnson and Paul.
