The Senate Votes Friday on the Sanctions Bill Named for Lindsey Graham. It Needs 60 Votes, and His Sister Is One of the Cosponsors.

The Senate convenes at 10 a.m. Friday and, at 11:30, turns to final passage of the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia Act of 2026 — the sanctions package the South Carolina Republican spent more than a year pushing and did not live to see voted on. Graham died in July, days after returning to Washington from a trip to Ukraine. The bill needs 60 affirmative votes to clear.

Before passage, senators will vote on an amendment from Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, No. 6715, aimed at stripping tariff authority out of the measure. That authority is the part of the bill Graham argued mattered most: it would let the president impose tariffs on imports from countries that buy Russian oil or help Moscow evade sanctions, limited to the top five importers of Russian energy and the top five sanctions-evasion enablers. In practice that aims squarely at China and India.

The rest of the package is a conventional but unusually broad sanctions regime. It targets Russian officials, oligarchs and their family members, Russian banks and financial institutions, and the so-called shadow fleet of aging tankers Moscow uses to move crude outside Western price caps. A late deal folded in a separate Iran measure extending sanctions authority against Tehran's energy and weapons sectors — a necessary concession to build a coalition while the United States remains at war with Iran.

That merger was announced by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., alongside Sens. Darline Graham, R-S.C. — Lindsey Graham's sister, who now holds his seat — Katie Britt, R-Ala., Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Jim Risch, R-Idaho. "There is no greater way to honor Senator Graham's legacy than to move forward with this bipartisan agreement," the group said in a joint statement. The first procedural vote was scheduled for the same day Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was in Washington for Graham's funeral services; the chamber advanced the bill 86-12.

Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah, who sat in the presiding chair for that vote, told RFE/RL on Aug. 5 that the margin itself was the message. "It's not very often that you see things here in the Senate that are that overwhelmingly bipartisan," Curtis said. "And when you see that many of my colleagues on both sides come together, you should pay attention because that means we're serious and something's going to happen." He tied the vote directly to Beijing: "If you look simply at China and Taiwan, we know very well President Xi is watching what's happening in Ukraine, and if we back off, he knows we'll back off on Taiwan."

Shaheen, the ranking Democrat on foreign policy, has emphasized the provisions hitting Russia's Arctic liquefied natural gas projects, its banks and the shadow fleet, along with tariff authority of up to 100% on imports from countries still financing the war through energy purchases. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., argued on the floor on Aug. 4 that the chamber was wasting time debating a bill that already had the votes, saying Ukrainian drone operations had put Russia "on the back foot" and that cutting Moscow's oil revenue would slow the war without costing American resources.

Friday's session is crowded. Senators will also confirm 74 nominations en bloc and vote on cloture for a Susan Collins substitute amendment to the continuing resolution that would fund the government through Dec. 11. Even if the sanctions bill passes, the House does not take it up until after the August recess.