Unelected Official Targets Gun Owners, Private Schools In Latest Rejection of Trump Policies
'Striking 52 sections from the initial draft bill'
Republicans rage over Senate's ‘watered-down’ version of Trump's 'big, beautiful bill'
Republican lawmakers are becoming increasingly frustrated with the Senate as the parliamentarian continues to hack away at key provisions in President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill."
The latest ruling from the Senate parliamentarian has sent Republicans into a tailspin. It struck several Medicaid-related reforms that many conservatives fought for. Some of these provisions include limiting federal funds to states that allow illegal aliens to receive Medicaid benefits, prohibiting federal funds for "gender-affirming care," and preventing non-expansion states from increasing their current provider tax rates.
'The Senate should know better than to send a bill with this waste of taxpayer money back to the House.'
RELATED:Republican support wanes as Senate overhauls key provisions in 'big, beautiful bill'
"How is it that an unelected swamp bureaucrat, who was appointed by Harry Reid over a decade ago, gets to decide what can and cannot go in President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill? The Senate Parliamentarian is not elected," Republican Rep. Greg Steube of Florida said in a post on X. "She is not accountable to the American people. Yet she holds veto power over legislation supported by millions of voters."
"We are trying to undo the America LAST insanity from the Democrats by kicking illegals off of Medicare and Medicaid and stopping taxpayer subsidies from being used for genital mutilation of children!!" Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said in a post on X.
Although the parliamentarian is able to issue advisory rulings over which provisions are in violation of the Byrd Rule, they can be overruled, which is what Republican Rep. Keith Self of Texas is calling for.
"The rogue Senate Parliamentarian should be overruled, just like activist judges."
RELATED: Republican senator makes a stunning admission: 'I can't be somebody that I'm not'
It's not just the Medicaid provisions that have sparked outrage amongs Republican lawmakers. The Senate has hardly rolled back Biden-era green-energy subsidies that were implemented through the Inflation Reduction Act. Many Republicans in the House made it clear that aggressive cuts were nonnegotiable, yet the Senate is extending certain solar and wind subsidies through at least 2030 and in some cases through 2040.
"The American people are sick and tired of their tax dollars funding Chinese solar panels and inefficient wind turbines that are destroying our land," Republican Rep. Mary Miller of Illinois told Blaze News. "President Trump made it clear he wants no Green New Scam tax credits in the big, beautiful bill. The Senate must follow the House's lead and get it done — this is our opportunity to protect our farmland, our food supply, and our energy independence."
RELATED: SALT Republicans left seething after Senate makes major changes to the 'big, beautiful bill'
“Congress has a chance to end the left’s Green New Scam for good, but if Senate Republicans swap the House’s firm ‘placed in service’ deadline for the vague ‘construction begins’ standard, we will fail to deliver on President Trump’s promise," Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin told Blaze News. "This loophole would let wind and solar subsidies drag on for years — long after Trump’s second term — destroying American farmland and threatening our power grid."
"Americans didn’t elect Republicans to rubber-stamp Joe Biden’s radical Green New Deal scam," Self said in a post on X. "The Senate’s watered-down 'Big Beautiful Bill' wastes billions on climate schemes."
Republicans maintained that if the Senate punts this "watered-down" bill back to the House, they will likely not have the votes to pass the bill before the July 4 deadline.
"Biden's Green New Scam offers massive, unchecked subsidies to billion-dollar corporations and Chinese manufacturers, undermining American energy independence and economic freedom," Republican Rep. Mark Harris of North Carolina told Blaze News. "Yet the Senate is reportedly gutting our hard-fought House measures to stop these tax giveaways. President Trump wants them gone, and so do I. The Senate should know better than to send a bill with this waste of taxpayer money back to the House.”
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Senate parliamentarian rules against key provisions from Trump's 'big, beautiful bill'
The Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, ruled that several key provisions in the "big, beautiful bill" violate the Byrd Rule, potentially setting the stage for the provisions to be removed altogether.
In order to avoid a filibuster and pass the bill under a simple majority, the legislation needs to be compliant with the Byrd Rule, which prevents "extraneous" provisions from being included in reconciliation. The "extraneous" provisions MacDonough ruled against include key climate and financial provisions.
Although these rulings can be contentious, they are not set in stone.
One provision the parliamentarian ruled against came from the Senate Banking Committee's reconciliation text, which would have cut $6.4 billion in funding from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She also ruled against cutting $1.4 billion by reducing the wages for Federal Reserve staff, cutting $293 million from the Office of Financial Research, and cutting $771 million by abolishing the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.
MacDonough also ruled against a provision that would repeal green energy subsidies authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act, as well as certain tailpipe emission standards put forth by the Environmental Protection Agency.
RELATED: Republican support wanes as Senate overhauls key provisions in 'big, beautiful bill'
Although these rulings can be contentious, they are not set in stone. James Wallner, vice president of policy at the Foundation for American Innovation, told Blaze News that the parliamentarian's rulings are based on precedent and provide an advisory role subject to the chair.
"There's how it works on paper, and then how it works in practice," Wallner said. "The parliamentarian is just a staffer. So we have a parliamentarian because you have all these different procedural authorities and Senate rules. The Senate rules, though, are very vague, and they are many pages long."
"So you have all these rules, but oftentimes what happens is the rule isn't very explicit, and there are ambiguities," Wallner added. "So when there are ambiguities, the parliamentarian will advise the Senate. At least in theory."
RELATED: SALT Republicans left seething after Senate makes major changes to the 'big, beautiful bill'
Wallner said the parliamentarian works alongside both majority and minority committee staff to identify provisions that violate the Byrd Rule. Once the parliamentarian issues a ruling, a senator has to raise a point of order on the floor about the Byrd violations. The parliamentarian then advises the chair, who ultimately makes the final decision as to whether the provision in question is a violation.
Although MacDonough ultimately serves in an advisory capacity, Wallner told Blaze News that senators often like to point the finger at the parliamentarian.
"Senators talk about her as if she's the only one who decides," Wallner said. "But it's a very convenient way for them to kind of pass the buck and act like they're not in charge. The parliamentarian has no power to actually issue it authoritatively."
"It can be adversarial, but it's through that adversarial process that you really get a robust discussion of these provisions," Wallner added.
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No, The Senate Shouldn’t Let Even More Unaccountable Bureaucrats Decide What The Law Says
Senate Republicans obviously shouldn’t outsource their legislative prerogatives to the parliamentarian.Senate parliamentarian kills Democrat plan to grant mass amnesty to illegal immigrants
The Senate parliamentarian on Wednesday shot down the Democrats' plan to grant amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants without going through the normal process of building consensus among lawmakers and voting to change the law.
Democrats have promised that widespread amnesty would be included in their $3.5 trillion spending bill, which they aim to pass through a process called budget reconciliation to deny Republicans the opportunity to filibuster and kill the bill. However, Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough told lawmakers that their attempt to update the immigration registry through budget reconciliation violates Senate rules, CQ Roll Call reports.
The plan involved changing the date on the immigration registry, which is currently set at 1972, to permit immigrants who have resided in the U.S. since then and demonstrated "good moral character" to become legal permanent residents. The idea to update the national immigration registry was a backup plan Democrats formed after the parliamentarian rejected their first attempt to include amnesty in the $3.5 trillion bill.
However, MacDonough reportedly told Senate Democrats that amnesty would be a "weighty policy change" and that any bill that would grant millions of illegal immigrants in the United States the right to stay here legally and seek U.S. citizenship is unlikely to meet the requirements for a budget reconciliation bill.
"The change in status to LPR [lawful permanent residency] remains a life-long change in circumstances the value of which vastly outweighs its budgetary impact," she said.
The Senate parliamentarian ruled against Democrats’ *second* bid to legalize undocumented immigrants through budget… https://t.co/jWmyjr9SkH
— Camilo Montoya-Galvez (@camiloreports) 1632941169.0
Reacting, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the No. 2 Senate Democrat, said the parliamentarian's decision is a "disappointment" and acknowledged Democrats' options for passing amnesty are "limited."
""As people live desperate lives for fear of a knock on the door and no future for the kids, unfortunately we can't find the language to clear for the reconciliation that might help them," Durbin told Roll Call. "But yeah, we're gonna keep trying."
Other Senate Democrats voiced similar disappointment. Progressive activists online expressed outrage. Pro-amnesty groups protested outside the residence of Vice President Kamala Harris in Washington, D.C., demanding that she act as president of the Senate to overrule the recommendation from the parliamentarian.
🚨 HAPPENING NOW: We are outside @VP Kamala Harris’ house reminding her that she can and has the power to ignore the… https://t.co/haFiCORHpv
— United We Dream Action (@UWDAction) 1632937313.0
The parliamentarian's ruling leaves Democrats with a few options. They could ignore the ruling and invoke the nuclear option to change the Senate's rules to pass amnesty for illegal aliens without the 60-vote threshold required by an inevitable filibuster from Republicans.
Or, lawmakers could negotiate a compromise and win a bipartisan consensus that meets the 60-vote threshold to break a filibuster from the minority — in other words, use the normal process of public debate and persuasion to make progress in Congress. But that's unheard of.
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