At some point, both bodies must pass exactly the same language in order to have a bill "pass" Congress. There are multiple ways for this to happen.
For this bill, the approach seems to be to take radically different versions of the bill, one passed by the House, and one passed by the Senate, into conference committee to negotiate a compromise. Assuming that happens, the compromise language has to be passed by both chambers.
An alternative, not discussed but possible, is for the House to pass exactly what the Senate passes. If they do, no conference is necessary, they will have agreed and the bill will be ready for presentment to the president.
So if it wasn’t for the 3 traitors, this thing would die, as is.
For this bill, the approach seems to be to take radically different versions of the bill, one passed by the House, and one passed by the Senate, into conference committee to negotiate a compromise. Assuming that happens, the compromise language has to be passed by both chambers.
Expect the conference committee to produce a bill that contains all of the spending from the House plus all of the spending from the Senate. (We would not want to leave something out that might help the economy.) They could even add some new ideas that were not considered or were rejected in the House and Senate. As long as it's not enough to start losing Democrat support there will be no problem passing the final bill. Then there will be an up or down (party line) vote on the final bill.
With the cloture vote yesterday, we lost all procedural leverage to influence the bill. It's in the Dem's hands now. Makes you feel warm all over doesn't it - kind of like messing your pants.
Does the compromise bill require another cloture vote in the Senate?