Parliamentarian Says Many Provisions in Budget Reconciliation Draft Need 60 Votes to Pass Senate.
Trump's debt-and-deficit exploding budget strategy is all about landing 50 GOP votes on the Senate floor. These draft provisions would require 60 votes, according to Senate rules and analysis.
When it comes to passing legislation in the U.S., one challenge has historically been the 60% threshold of passage for votes on the Senate floor. That has meant that many bills pass the House of Representatives—which operates under a simple majority (50% + 1)—only to die with no path to 60 votes in the Senate. The current partisan mix in the Senate is 53-47, meaning that Republicans would need seven Democrats and all GOP Senators to vote with them to pass any significant legislation.
There is one GIGANTIC EXCEPTION to the 60-vote requirement, however, and that’s with ongoing budget negotiations, what we’re calling “budget reconciliation” these days. Reconciliation negotiations are ongoing in the Senate, as they work to change the House-passed budget bill in ways that can pass the Senate with only 50 votes. Reconciliation packages are the one situation where a simple majority vote can carry the Senate.
To determine what is relevant and allowed under the specific budget rules, referred to as the “Byrd rule,” the Senate Parliamentarian issues an opinion assessing budget relevance to specific provisions within proposed legislation. The Parliamentarian has been weighing in on the Byrd Rule with respect to the Senate’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” over the last week. Numerous provisions in the Senate draft were found to violate Senate budget requirements.
The following links are descriptions of Parliamentary rulings provided by the Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR):
Some of the key provisions that violate the Byrd rule are important to rural budgets:
SNAP State Cost-Share requirements—the Parliamentarian found that the restructuring of SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program formerly known as food stamps) budgets requiring state cost-share for benefits based on error rates violates the Byrd rule. This would be a major change to current SNAP operations and budget allocations.
SNAP benefits for undocumented people. The Parliamentarian found that Congress could not bar undocumented workers from receiving SNAP benefits through the budget reconciliation process.
Suspension of “Permanent Price Support Authority.” No, the Secretary of Agriculture isn’t likely to return to the New Deal farm programs of yore. That would mean fair prices for farmers, supply management, and a farmer-owned grain reserve. Republicans want to make sure that permanent price support authority is banned because they prefer the status quo of lower taxes for rich people, farm programs that primarily benefit a large number of giant rowcrop producers, and “deregulation” even though agriculture is largely exempt from environmental laws. They won’t be able to extend this suspension of authority through the reconciliation package, however, if they abide the Parliamentarian ruling.
Suspension of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). No, Republicans will not be able to suspend National Environmental Policy Act rules for fast-tracking energy development on public land, according to the Senate Parliamentarian. NEPA processes would help to slow down a potential Trump-fueled mining and gas boom. NEPA provides a series of regulatory reviews and public-input processes that reveal dissent and widespread opposition to drilling and mining on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) or U.S. Forest Service land.
Termination of Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) Funding. The Parliamentarian ruled that the Senate could not terminate future allocations of mandatory funding through the Inflation Reduction Act. The ruling said that rescissions for left-over unallocated funding are allowed, but not eliminating mandatory funding in future years. This could mean that other provisions of the Senate draft, such as elimination of some clean energy tax credits, might be impacted by this ruling.
The Parliamentarian website says that its “advice is based on whether a provision is appropriate for reconciliation and conforms to the limitations of the Byrd Rule; it is not a judgement on the relative merits of a particular policy.”
The Parliamentarian Byrd Rule findings are nearly always followed by Senate leaders, and is enforced by the presiding officer of the Senate. That’s either the President or the President pro tempore of the Senate, in this case either Vice President JD Vance or Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) .
The Senate is pushing to start voting on their budget reconciliation draft later this week.
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