How the Big Beautiful Bill became law: Graham wins over ‘Murderer’s Row’
Washington Examiner · RC · trust 39/100
In the days leading up to Donald Trump’s second presidency, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham got some unexpected news.
Graham was one of the longest-serving members of the Senate Committee on the Budget, and, based on seniority, would be its chairman for the 119th Congress — a job poised to place him at the center of some of the biggest policy fights of the next six months. He’d not only be responsible for ushering the big beautiful bill across the Senate floor, a herculean task given Republicans’ three-seat majority. But he’d also be leading a rag-tag group of opinionated Republicans who sat on the panel, many of them fiscal hawks.
The late Graham, speaking to the Washington Examiner a week before his sudden death on July 11 , fondly referred to that crew as “Murderer’s Row.”
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) talks with reporters as he leaves a closed-door meeting with Senate Republicans for discussions on advancing President Donald Trump’s bill of tax breaks and spending cuts on Wednesday, June 4, 2025, at the Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
“I think God works in mysterious ways,” he said. “Making me budget chairman for the One Big Beautiful Bill had to be divine providence, because nobody else would have thought of doing that, including me.”
It was not that Graham wasn’t up for the challenge. By the time the bill passed in July of last year, his fingerprints were over virtually every step of the process, from the debate over one bill versus two to the controversial decision to make its tax cuts permanent.
But Graham also understood that, as chairman, he’d be leading some of the most vocal Republicans in his conference, several of whom were a thorn in leadership’s side over the law’s impact on the deficit. He also never fathomed that his membership on the committee would catapult him to such a pivotal role.
“You know, I’ve been on the budget committee for 10 years, and we’ve done some things of consequence, but mostly not,” Graham said. “Mostly you don’t do a whole lot.”
He added: “Let’s put it this way: Being on the budget committee wasn’t the reason I woke up every morning, but I got to be chairman.”
The circumstance was so unusual, in part, because Republicans had unified control of government for only the fifth time in the last 100 years , giving them a rare window of opportunity to pass legacy-setting legislation without the help of Democrats.
And though the process involved more than a dozen committees, it was Graham’s that had to navigate the intricacies of reconciliation, the filibuster-skirting budget process that meant endless consultations with the Senate parliamentarian, and taking point on “vote-a-ramas” that gave Democrats repeated chances to sink the bill.
Republicans passed that piece of legislation on July 1, 2025, after one final voting marathon that lasted more than 24 hours and required Graham and his Republican colleagues to beat back over 40 amendments .
The formula for success, Graham said, was rather straightforward. When Democrats vote “no,” Republicans vote “yes” — a shirts and skins exercise he referred to as “Budget Committee 101.”
He hammered that message home from the very first meeting he had with committee Republicans in early 2025, reminding his colleagues that they were on the “front lines” of the reconciliation process and that failure was not an option.
The pep talk was directed at Republicans on his committee, who he feared would let the perfect be the enemy of the good. He warned that the emphasis on deficit reduction would have to be set aside at a certain point for the broader goal of extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts.
What is a ‘vote-a-rama,’ the Washington marathon loathed by senators?
“We have a lot of smart people with stronger opinions, and I think my biggest contribution was to try to keep it simple,” Graham said. “If we fail, then people are going to look at us as the gang that couldn’t shoot straight, and a group of Republicans who missed a historic opportunity to make the economy stronger and better, to avoid higher taxes, and implement new policy, good policy — without one Democratic vote.”
From the outset, he encouraged his colleagues to make their mark on the bill, including by offsetting its price tag. That is, so long as it did not jeopardize final passage.
“Here’s what I said: I’ll take any good idea you have, but there’s two things you got to meet,” Graham told the Washington Examiner .
“No. 1, it’s got to be Byrd-compliant,” he said, referring to the rules of budget reconciliation . “And two, it can’t scare four people to death who will jump out the window and vote no.”
Keeping it simple was easier said than done. Graham wanted to start Trump’s presidency by funding his immigration crackdown, a relatively uncontroversial lift for Republicans that would have punted the thorny question of how to pay for his tax cuts until later in the year.
But the House, which pressed for a single, all-encompassing bill, got the final word on that process, meaning Graham spent the spring working with leadership to wrangle the holdouts on his committee.
He had already navigated a vote-a-rama to pass a border-only reconciliation bill and would now have to do so again for a much larger package, this time with stiffer resistance. And the promise of $2 trillion in savings coming from the House was not enough to placate some of his members.
Of the 11 Republicans on Graham’s panel, three were outspoken fiscal conservatives : Sens. Rick Scott (R-FL), Ron Johnson (R-WI), and Mike Lee (R-UT).
The remainder were a mix of senior hands, including Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Senate Committee on Finance Chairman Mike Crapo (R-ID), as well as more junior members who were comfortable toeing the party line.
Graham said it took being a good listener to overcome the opposition.
“Our people love to talk about this stuff,” Graham said. “These people love talking about the budget. And I said,…
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