So the game is on in the Senate as the fight continues over the Big Beautiful Bill that was passed as a reconciliation bill in the House. 

The issue is over what is called the Byrd Rule on reconciliation bills. Those bills are passed under the “Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974”. You can find details of what can and cannot be done and a definition of what “reconciliation” is in Understanding the Big Beautiful Bill and the Laws That Surround It, but the gist is that a reconciliation bill can be passed with a simple majority in the Senate, but only under certain conditions. Those conditions were authored by the late Sen. Robert C Byrd (D-W.Va.), are actually defined by law in Section 313 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, and are also by the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, but the actual rules are Senate rules that were first proposed by Byrd in 1985, and amended in 1990.

The purpose of the Byrd Rule is to limit what can and can’t be done in a reconciliation bill. In general, the rule is to make sure reconciliation bills don’t include anything extraneous, which is defined as anything that lacks a direct budgetary impact or has only incidental fiscal effects. There are some other conditions, but those are the main ones.

The kicker with the Byrd Rule is that what is and is not “extraneous” is defined by the Senate Parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, who was appointed by Harry Reid in 2012.

MacDonough has objected to a number of things in the Big Beautiful Bill, including repealing provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, allowing opt-ins to waive judicial review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). zeroing out funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) — Elizabeth Warren’s pet agency — and eight other things that so far aren’t well reported.

The effect of the Byrd Rule is simple: a reconciliation bill can be passed by a simple majority only if the Parliamentarian agrees that the Byrd Rule is satisfied. Otherwise, it’s back to the usual filibuster rules, which means it must be able to get a 60-vote majority in the Senate.

Right now, it’s unclear what happens next. The usual procedure is what’s called the “Byrd Bath,” where modifications are made until the Parliamentarian agrees that it meets the Byrd Rule. In theory, MacDonough is supposed to be non-partisan, but we know what that word means in American politics: you dance with the one that brung ya.

Another option is that the Parliamentarian serves at the pleasure of the Senate Majority Leader. In theory, at least, John Thune, as Majority Leader, could simply remove MacDonough and appoint a more tractable individual in her place.

The downstream political consequences of that would be interesting — as in “may you live in interesting times.”

But, at least for now, it’s likely that this will be a pretty significant roadblock to getting the Big Beautiful Bill passed by the Fourth of July.

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