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Article snippet: WASHINGTON — By midafternoon on Friday, Republicans had the votes to pass their tax bill in the Senate. What they did not have was a bill. The legislation, covering nearly 500 pages, finally surfaced well after the sun had set. It appeared first in the lobbying shops of K Street, which sent back copies to some Democrats in the Senate, who took to social media to protest being asked to vote in a matter of hours on a bill that had yet to be shared with them directly. The drafts that leaked to journalists included changes scrawled in looping handwriting in the margins. Democrats posted screenshots and accompanying complaints. Senator Jon Tester, Democrat of Montana, called it “Washington D.C. at its worst” in a video in which he held up a page of the bill with the changes. “This is unbelievable, we’re doing massive tax reform on an absolute incredible timeline,” he said. “This is going to affect everybody in this country.” With Republicans intent on passing a bill along party lines, public protests have been Democrats’ only weapon throughout the lightning-fast progression of the bill over the last month. The minority party has no ability to stop the bill, because Republicans are employing a Senate tactic that allows them to bypass a Democratic filibuster. The first version of the tax plan was introduced in the House on Nov. 1 and approved two weeks later; the Senate is on course to match that pace. That would be a compressed schedule in any event, but it was particu... Link to the full article to read more