WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, D-New Orleans arrived at 2:30 a.m. Wednesday to procure a seat.

If Carter left, he’d lose his place in the small hearing room. Instead, he sipped tea and nibbled on banana nut bread while waiting 10 hours to give a five-minute speech opposing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

The House had adjourned Tuesday evening after a full day of work. A few hours later at 1 a.m. Wednesday the House Rules Committee convened to consider 537 amendments.

After advancing the bill Wednesday evening, the full House debated overnight the procedures to consider and then the merits of the bill. The House approved the bill by a single vote a few minutes before 7 a.m. Thursday, then adjourned after working 30 hours straight.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Benton, and Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, spent their time nailing down the final votes needed to pass the legislation. The rest of Louisiana’s six-member House delegation were involved in their own ways during the marathon session that led to passage in the House of the most consequential legislation since Donald Trump became president in January.

Carter, 61, wanted to present his amendments and his outrage at the bill’s spending reductions to Medicaid and food stamps to cover the increased costs of continuing Trump’s 2017 tax cut, new tax breaks for tip and overtime earnings, additional spending on border control and fulfilling other campaign promises.

Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge, also waited hours for a chance to present an amendment that had no chance of being added by the GOP majority. He said the parade of dozens of Democrats to the Rules Committee was not orchestrated by the minority’s leadership but seemed to grow organically as the night wore on.

“The Republicans wanted to do it easy, in the dead of night, when they thought America was not watching so that only thing people would know about it is what Republicans said. We weren’t going to let that happen,” he said after the bill passed the House Thursday morning by one vote.

Fields, 62, said he had been up two straight days, fueled by coffee, but could take a nap on his flight home.

Democrats didn’t have the numbers to stop the 1,116-page bill. But they could — and did — delay its passage.

House leadership didn’t spend any time trying to persuade Democrats.

Johnson and Scalise focused on turning recalcitrant Republicans from no to yes because if three GOP members joined Democrats, Trump’s bill would’ve failed.

One of those holdouts was Rep. Clay Higgins, R-Lafayette. He wrote on social media that the U.S. was facing financial insolvency because of deficit spending. The bill would add $3.8 trillion of debt over 10 years to the nation’s $36 trillion deficit, if passed as-is by the Senate.

Trump visited the Capitol Tuesday and met Wednesday at the White House with a handful of members, including Higgins. Trump said the time for negotiations were over and that they should accept the deals or face the consequences.

“It was a productive meeting to the extent that we feel pretty positive about the direction that we’re moving in,” Higgins said. He voted in favor of the bill.

Rep. Julia Letlow’s vote was never in doubt. The Start Republican spent the sprint attending her committee meetings and being on-call to cast her votes as needed.

Johnson and Scalise had spent months negotiating with conservatives who wanted deeper cuts to Medicaid and the not-as-conservative faction that didn’t. Then there were Republicans from richer blue states who wanted more of a federal tax break for local and state taxes paid.

“There (were) a few moments over the last week when it looked like the thing might fall apart,” Johnson said Thursday. In between meetings with the competing groups, Johnson said he visited the Capitol chapel to pray.

This being Johnson’s greatest victory during his 19 months as speaker, national media focused on him. Their articles marveled at Johnson’s willingness to sit for long hours to sort through an adversary’s position — a trait he has held since a LSU student dipping his toe into conservative politics for the first time.

Scalise, an old hand at congressional votes, told an Americans for Prosperity gathering Tuesday he reminded the last holdouts that no votes aligned them against Trump and his bill to energize the economy.

“Most Americans just want to know, how is my life going to be better or worse,” said Scalise. “With this bill, your life will be dramatically better because you’re going to have more money in your pocket, your small business that you’re working for, or large business, is going to now invest more money into the economy to allow you to get a higher paying job.”

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is now before the U.S. Senate.