Lawmakers’ love-hate relationship with a little-known but powerful Senate official is in full swing as Republicans scramble to advance President Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill.

But Senate leaders and aides in both parties see only downside to sidelining Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, even as conservatives call for her ouster for vetoing myriad provisions in Trump’s sprawling domestic policy agenda that she says violate rules governing the filibuster-skirting bill.

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Her expertise as the Senate’s interpreter of arcane chamber rules cannot be easily replaced with a party loyalist, and her day-to-day duties are nonpartisan in nature, even if she was appointed in 2012 by then-Democratic Leader Harry Reid.

Most importantly, senators warn that a snowball of retaliation would ensue whenever a new majority comes to power if either party were to remove or overrule her.

“That would not be a good outcome for getting a bill done,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said in response to GOP calls for him to use his authority and fire MacDonough.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) praised MacDonough for doing “a right down the middle, fair, on-the-level job. I think she has the respect of people who go argue before her,” he added.

Previously, MacDonough was a Senate staffer for more than 25 years before her position as Senate parliamentarian, serving under three presidents and four majority leaders of both parties. She’s generally seen by Republican and Democratic senators as a fair arbiter over her most controversial duty, which is ruling on what violates the Byrd Rule in the budget reconciliation. The rules bar “extraneous” non-budget policies and require all language to have a direct fiscal effect.

Trump has taken a measured approach with MacDonough, even as she’s forced dozens of GOP provisions to be altered or stripped entirely from his bill. The Senate GOP’s strategy was to be overly aggressive in their policy goals with the acute understanding they’ll likely need to be pared back to comply.

“The parliamentarian has been a little difficult, and I would say that I disagree with the parliamentarian on some things and on other ways she’s been fine,” Trump told reporters. “But we’ll have to see. It’s a big issue.”

However, MacDonough holds immense power for an unelected official and is not term-limited, frustrating other Republicans. Trump’s neutral position stood in stark contrast to some in his party, such as Sens. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) and Roger Marshall (R-KS), who’ve demanded MacDonough be ousted. House Republicans have been even more vocal in calling for her removal.

“We took the majority. It’s just my belief you change the team and put a team in you’re comfortable with,” Tuberville, the former head football coach at Auburn and other elite universities, told the Washington Examiner. “Whether they go with you or not, you feel better about it at the end of the day.”

Senate GOP leadership has repeatedly tussled with MacDonough in recent months, even before the tensions with Trump’s legislation.

They butted heads in April, when Republicans used floor procedure to defer to Senate Budget Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on using “current policy baseline,” a novel scoring method the GOP is using to treat trillions in tax cut extensions as cost-free. Republicans also used elaborate floor maneuvering in May to sidestep MacDonough and repeal California’s electric vehicle mandate.

Graham, as has Thune, reaffirmed Republicans “will abide by” the parliamentarian’s rulings, which could be overridden with a simple majority vote. But on a forthcoming ruling from MacDonough on the current policy baseline, Graham insisted “she’s not going to overrule that” because it’s “my decision.”

Just as the modern-day willingness to protect the parliamentarian cuts across party lines, so too do the visceral frustrations that date back decades. The last time a parliamentarian was ousted was in 2001, when Republicans dismissed Robert Dove for alleged “inconsistent” decision-making.

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Under then-President Joe Biden in 2021, MacDonough faced similar wrath and demands for her firing from the Left for striking provisions, including a $15 minimum wage. Schumer ultimately rebuffed such suggestions.

“It’s leadership’s decision. They live or die with it,” Tuberville said. “I think this could have been a better bill, had we had it had a lot of these things in there that she kicked out.”

David Sivak contributed to this report.