Subject: Re: A Senate question
What's the point of all this?

It's a procedural motion that has priority, so it's used to briefly stop whatever the Senate is doing for a short time. It's like a short "time out" in the regular order. It can be used for a number of reasons:

More often than not, however, quorum calls are unrelated to attendance on the floor. Senators “suggest the absence of a quorum” to suspend the Senate’s formal floor proceedings temporarily. There are many purposes for such quorum calls. For example, they can be used to permit informal discussions that are intended to resolve a policy disagreement or procedural problem, or to allow a Senator to reach the floor in order to make a speech or begin consideration of a bill. When a quorum call is provoked for such a purpose, it is usually ended by unanimous consent before the call of the roll has been completed.

https://www.congress.gov/crs_e...