The Senate COVID relief bill begins to move for real.

At 5:35 am on Friday, the Senate concluded the exhaustive process that had begun at 2:30 pm on Thursday: Approval of the budget by a 50-50 vote on the party line, in which Vice President Kamala Harris acted as a tiebreaker. The “vote-a-rama” process was open to any and all amendments, and of the 889 (!) That were offered, 40 received roll-call votes. In a chamber that moves at the fast pace of an encrusted rock, this is enough for a 15-hour day.

The Senate is an old and disconcerting place that draws its strength from the public’s confusion. Judging by the social media outcry during certain votes on Thursday night, the Senate drew a lot of strength from its night. But there are only two important conclusions in the process: (1) Approval of the budget was little more than a procedural step to unlock the reconciliation process, which will allow Senate Democrats to pass a COVID relief bill without fear of obstruction and (2) the amendments that went into the resolution were essentially votes of messages and will have no binding effect on what may or may not be included in the COVID relief bill.

There was, for example, a bipartisan amendment brokered between Democrats and Centrist Republicans saying that the next round of direct relief checks should not go to “high-income taxpayers”. It went through 99 to 1, but its effect on who is eligible for the final COVID relief legislation is nothing; he didn’t even bother to define what “high income” meant. The best way to think about these amendments is that the Senate was being asked, incidentally, for its opinion on various issues. I wasn’t making law.

So why did they bother to vote on all these amendments? The Republican minority took the rare opportunity to force votes on Democrats and get them registered on difficult issues. (Democrats did the same thing when Republicans prepared reconciliation projects twice in 2017.)

Indiana Senator Todd Young, for example, called for a vote on banning undocumented migrants from receiving direct aid checks. It passed by 58 to 42, with 8 Democrats mostly intermediate or vulnerable joining the Republicans. Montana Senator Steve Daines called on “improving relations between the United States and Canada with respect to the Keystone XL pipeline.” In other words, the vote was, is the Keystone XL Pipeline good or bad? It went from 52 to 48 with the Sens. Joe Manchin and Jon Tester joining the Republicans. A similar one on fracking was also approved.

An interesting moment, however, came when Republicans tried to give Democrats the $ 15 minimum wage, an element of Biden’s relief plan that lacks unanimous Democratic support. Iowa Senator Joni Ernst called for an amendment “banning an increase in the federal minimum wage during a global pandemic to $ 15 an hour.” Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, who was managing the debate, said he agreed with the amendment, which is why his $ 15 minimum wage legislation changes the new rate over several years. The amendment was then passed by verbal vote, eliminating the need for senators to register.

None of the amendments to Keystone XL, undocumented immigrants receiving checks or fracking were even included in the final budget resolution when everything was said and done. Towards the end of the process, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer successfully passed an amendment eliminating the three, as they could have complicated efforts to pass the resolution in the House. (The House past on Friday, 219 to 209.)

If there was any use for the amendment process, in addition to Republicans chasing Democrats to create talking points for the 2022 campaign, it was to give tips on where politics is on various issues. Democrats, for example, may end up cutting direct relief checks into the bill – not the maximum amount of $ 1,400 that President Biden has insisted on maintaining, but the limits within which they will be eliminated. But they didn’t officially decide that Thursday night.

We will learn a lot More about where the policy is on several issues in the coming weeks, however, when Democrats actually draft the COVID relief bill.

Now that Democrats have unlocked the use of reconciliation, the next step is for all committees charged with developing pieces of legislation to start working. When this is done, the budget committees will compile everything into one package and advance it to a plenary vote. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday morning that her House expects this to be done in the next two weeks, while the Senate is concerned about an impeachment trial.

Once the process reaches the Senate, things will be more risky. House Democrats have a narrow margin to work, but Senate Democrats have zero margin: they will need 50 of the 50 Democrats – Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin – to agree on a bill relief from COVID. They will also have to fight the “Byrd Rule”, a statute that restricts what can and cannot be approved through reconciliation.

In other words, do not waste your limited stock of distressed energy on what non-binding message amendments were or were not approved in the debate on non-binding budget resolution. Democrats are just getting started on the real, boring thing.