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Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough delivered a crippling blow to President Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, ruling against several provisions in the House-passed package. It was a wrench in the gears for Senate Republicans, who were planning to hold their initial vote on Friday, June 27.
The parliamentarian can be thought of as the Senate’s referee – and while she doesn’t vote on legislation, her interpretations of the rules are traditionally respected. Some feel as if the parliamentarian’s word is law – but is it? They’ve been both overruled and replaced in the past.
She wasn’t elected. She doesn’t vote. Few people even realize she exists until the annual reconciliation attempt hits the news cycle. Elizabeth MacDonough is the sixth person – and first woman – to hold the position of Senate parliamentarian since its inception in 1935. But what does this obscure and arcane job actually entail?
The most common duty is probably referring all introduced legislation, communications from the executive branch, and memorials to the correct Senate committee. This happens quite regularly, though it does not make the news. The role Americans are most familiar with, however – if familiar at all – is that of Senate referee. When the often complex, convoluted, or vaguely worded rules come into question, the parliamentarian interprets and gives a ruling.
This typically happens each year when the majority party pushes a budget reconciliation bill to bypass the 60-vote hurdle to passing legislation. According to the Byrd Rule, a doctrine named after the late Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, nothing can be added to a reconciliation bill that isn’t directly related to the federal budget.
According to Ms. MacDonough, several provisions of the Senate’s version of the bill run afoul of the Byrd Rule. First and foremost, the big one: She ruled that a $250 million cut to Medicaid and other health-care spending didn’t qualify for reconciliation. The parliamentarian also rejected attempts to change the cost sharing for Obamacare and to stop the Affordable Care Act from covering abortions. Also on the chopping block are measures to eliminate funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, cutting $300 million from the Financial Research Fund, moving the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board to the Securities and Exchange Commission, and changing the pay schedule for Federal Reserve employees. Attempts to change the Defense Department spending policy and to allow states to conduct border security and immigration enforcement didn’t pass muster, either.
She did, however, approve an amended cost-sharing plan for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), more commonly known by its older name, food stamps.
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Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) met with President Trump on Thursday, June 26, to discuss how to move forward. Republicans were still hoping to meet their self-imposed deadline of July 4 for getting a finished bill to Trump’s desk, but with so many pieces needing to be either rewritten or dropped, that’s beginning to look quite unlikely. The preliminary vote originally planned for Friday isn’t expected any sooner than Saturday now, and even if the Senate can pass some form of the package that satisfies the parliamentarian, would such a drastically changed bill survive another House vote?
Some Republicans – from both houses – are calling for Sen. Thune to either override MacDonough or fire and replace her. That’s a controversial stance to take, but not unprecedented.
Parliamentarians have only been around since 1935, and the first time that one was ignored was in 1975. Vice President Nelson Rockefeller disregarded the advice of his while the Senate negotiated filibuster rules. A Senate Majority Leader can also fire a parliamentarian and appoint a new one – as was done with Robert Dove and Alan Frumin multiple times. Dove was named parliamentarian in 1981 and was fired by Sen. Robert Byrd and replaced with Frumin in 1987 when Democrats took control of the majority. When Republicans regained control in 1995, Dove was reinstated and Frumin returned to his previous position as the parliamentarian’s top assistant. Then, in 2001, Democrats once again ruled the roost, and Frumin once again became parliamentarian.
Elizabeth MacDonough, who took over the job in 2012 after Frumin retired, has already been ignored twice. In 2013, she tried to stop Democrats from eliminating the filibuster on votes to approve presidential nominees. In 2017, she tried to stop Republicans from doing the same for Supreme Court nominees. Both times, the Senate majorities proceeded anyway.
So, yes, Sen. Thune could either ignore her ruling outright or fire her and find someone more likely to interpret the rules his way – and if he did, as controversial as it would be, it would not be some ground-breaking, never-before-seen move. Still, Thune said Thursday that the Senate would not move to overrule MacDonough. “No, that would not be a good option for getting a bill done,” he told Politico when asked if he were considering working around her. And so it’s back to the drawing board for the Senate’s version of the Big Beautiful Bill.