#byrd rule

[socialjusticeinamerica]

[saywhat-politics]

Public land selloff is OUT of the Big Beautiful Bill, as the parliamentarian rules it not compliant with the Byrd rule.

Several other sections also killed

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Senate Parliamentarian Kills Civil Service Cut In Continued Scrub Of 'Beautiful Bill'

The GOP legislation has been taking a beating from the Senate's nonpartisan stickler for budget rules.

Arthur Delaney and Dave Jamieson at HuffPost:

WASHINGTON — The Senate’s rules referee has thrown a roadblock in front of congressional Republicans’ plan to gut job protections for federal workers through their “big, beautiful bill.” The Senate’s parliamentarian ruled lawmakers cannot include the proposal under the fast-track procedures they’re using for President Donald Trump’s sweeping domestic policy bill, Democrats said late Sunday.

It’s the latest in a series of decisions by the parliamentarian dismantling key provisions of the bill, including a major change to federal food benefits and an attempt to stop courts from enforcing injunctions against the Trump administration. The so-called budget reconciliation process allows Republicans to pass legislation through the Senate with a simple majority vote, which is a huge convenience, but there are rules against provisions deemed “extraneous” to the budget. It’s up to the parliamentarian to decide what counts. “Democrats are on the side of families and workers and are scrutinizing this bill piece by piece to ensure Republicans can’t use the reconciliation process to force their anti-worker policies on the American people,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, said in a news release Sunday night.

The heart of the legislation is a $4 trillion package of tax cuts, with their cost partly offset by about $1 trillion in spending cuts, though the parliamentarian has been whittling those. The proposal struck Sunday essentially would have forced new federal workers to pay for traditional civil service protections by raising their retirement contributions unless they agreed to be “at-will” employees who could be terminated at any time. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that most new workers would give up their rights rather than pay for them. Unions have derided the plan as “extortion.” They warned it would turn the civil service into a spoils system wherein the president could reward loyalists and fire whomever he wanted. Democrats said the parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, also blocked several other GOP provisions meant to undermine federal workers. (MacDonough’s decisions typically aren’t made public.)

Yet another provision to meet the Byrd Bath: Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough nixes a proposal from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that would have forced new federal workers to pay for traditional civil service protections.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Un-Byrdened: The Senate Parliamentarian Has Reset The Game

Rulings by Elizabeth MacDonough take big bites out of the GOP’s “Big Beautiful Bill”

Jay Kuo at The Big Picture:

The arcane world of parliamentary rules and procedures is not normally riveting drama. Few outside Congress know what a legislative “Byrd bath” is, and fewer still likely know the name Elizabeth MacDonough, the current Senate Parliamentarian.

Yet behind the scenes this weekend and into Monday in the Senate, MacDonough heard arguments from partisans and issued several key rulings, deciding what can stay in and what must come out of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” under rules governing the so-called “reconciliation” process. You may have heard about some of the worst things the GOP poured into the bill. Huge cuts to SNAP benefits. A provision aimed at kneecapping judicial review. Gutting of federal agencies and attacks upon the rights of federal workers. Restrictions on AI regulation by the states. Even the selling off of millions of acres of pristine federal land for development. How did all these fare after MacDonough and her office reviewed them? What came out of the bill, stayed in it, or only survived after significant modification? The process is ongoing, but we have some early answers. Before we jump into the specifics of this odious bill, let’s have a quick review of “reconciliation,” how it’s different than “normal” legislation under something called the “Byrd” Rule, and what part the Senate Parliamentarian plays. Then we’ll get to the juicy parts, which I’m happy to report have given Democrats many reasons to cheer.

Reconciliation, the Byrd Bath and the Parliamentarian

That header may sound like a C.S. Lewis novel, but the mechanics of what the Senate is currently doing matter a great deal to the entire nation. So it’s worth breaking these down and getting a firmer grasp of each. When typical bills originate in the House and go to the Senate for approval, they are subject to the filibuster rule. That means that any senator can keep debate from ending by lodging a filibuster. To break a filibuster, you need a three-fifths vote, or 60 senators to agree. In a closely divided Senate, that makes it very hard to get most legislation through. There has to be pretty solid bipartisan support.

But the filibuster doesn’t apply to all types of bills. The most important exception is a “reconciliation” bill. The name comes from the process where Congress “reconciles” federal laws on taxes and spending with the targets set by the annual budget. It’s basically a way to make the budget match the law. One of the primary jobs of Congress (though you wouldn’t know it from the past few years under GOP control) is to pass a budget and then appropriate funds. This process is difficult enough, but it would probably flounder entirely if the filibuster rules applied to reconciliation bills, too.

Because reconciliation is a key exception to the filibuster rule, you can imagine what the temptation is: loading everything you can into it and calling it a “reconciliation” bill. That’s what the GOP did with the budget bill. It’s loaded down with all kinds of things that would normally be subject to the filibuster were they in a stand-alone bill. Enter the Byrd Rule. It’s named after the late Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia and it’s been in place for 40 years. The Byrd Rule says that extraneous matters can’t get shoved into a reconciliation bill. What’s extraneous? There’s a laundry list that keeps out any provisions that budget beyond 10 years, are outside of a committee’s jurisdiction, are outside the budget instructions, or make changes to social security. But the big sticking point is this: it excludes anything that doesn’t change federal spending or revenue and excludes it where the budgetary effect is merely “incidental” to the actual policy goal.

It’s that last point that is the real stickler. How do you decide whether something is actually “incidental” to the budget in its effect? And who gets to decide that? Enter the Senate Parliamentarian. Think of her as a legislative referee. Her role is non-partisan, and she’s a crucial gatekeeper to keeping the Senate on the straight and narrow. Her job is to help ensure there are no B.S. provisions labeled as “budgetary” that are actually sneaky policy directives. Before the Senate gets to vote on the reconciliation, both sides make their case to the Parliamentarian, and she makes her rulings, washing out things that don’t meet the criteria. And that’s why it’s called a Byrd bath!

Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough gave the Byrd Bath to several GOP wishlist items not germane to budgetary in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

See Also:

Wolves and Sheep (Matt Kerbel): Byrd Bath

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Senate Parliamentarian Tells Republicans They Can't Do Their Big Food Benefit Cut

It's a major blow to the "Big Beautiful Bill" and a possible godsend for state budgets.

Arthur Delaney at HuffPost:

WASHINGTON ― A decision by the Senate’s rules referee will likely force Republicans to drop a major part of their so-called Big Beautiful Bill. Democrats announced late Friday night the Senate parliamentarian ruled that a provision requiring states to share the cost of federal food benefits cannot stay in the bill under the fast-track legislative procedures Republicans are using. It’s a significant setback. The proposal represented not only a major structural change to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, but also a decent chunk of savings that helped offset the cost of the bill’s tax cuts for the rich.

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, trumpeted the ruling, which resulted from Democrats making their case to the parliamentarian in closed-door meetings. “As much as Senate Republicans would prefer to throw out the rule book and advance their conservative families lose and billionaires win agenda, this process has rules and Democrats are making sure those rules are enforced,” Merkley said. “We will be fighting this bill every single day until Republicans bring it to the floor.”

The House version of the bill required states to pay at least 5% of the $100 billion annual cost of SNAP benefits, which go out monthly to more than 20 million households. Forcing states to cover benefit costs would have given them a strong incentive to kick people off the program. The Congressional Budget Office said the proposal would save $128 billion over a decade. The Senate version only mandated SNAP cost-sharing in states with high rates of erroneous SNAP payments, likely saving less. Both the House and Senate versions of the bill still have stricter “work requirements” for SNAP users without disabilities and limits on increases in future benefit amounts.

Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough Byrd Baths a provision requiring states to share the cost of federal food benefits, a big blow to the GOP’s hopes of passing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Republicans Revise SNAP Cut Axed By Parliamentarian, Win Approval For New Version

The proposal would force some states to cover benefit costs, giving them a strong incentive to reduce enrollment.

Arthur Delaney at HuffPost:

WASHINGTON — Republicans on Capitol Hill have revised the food benefit cut that was deemed ineligible for their so-called Big Beautiful Bill by the Senate rules referee. Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.), chair of the committee that oversees the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, announced on Tuesday that the Senate parliamentarian had OK’ed the new version. “This paves the way for important reforms that improve efficiency and management of SNAP while encouraging responsible use of taxpayer dollars,” Boozman said in a release. The original proposal, which was essentially killed by the parliamentarian on Friday, would have required states to share in the $100 billion annual cost of SNAP benefits based on their rates of erroneous payments.

Under the fast-track “budget reconciliation” process Republicans are using to pass their massive bill of tax and spending cuts, measures deemed “extraneous” by the parliamentarian are subject to the Senate’s 60 vote threshold, meaning Republicans have to drop them from the broader legislation if they want to pass it with a simple majority vote. Boozman said the parliamentarian’s concern was simply that the bill text, as originally drafted, which would require states with error rates above 6% to share costs starting in 2028, didn’t give states enough time to calculate their match rates.

“Their concern was the states didn’t have enough time to analyze the data so they can respond to it. So we’ve just come out of with a mechanism that they have a longer period,” Boozman told HuffPost on Tuesday. The updated proposal would allow states to base their error rates on either fiscal 2025 or 2026 data, Boozman’s office said. The SNAP provision is a key part of the megabill’s spending cuts, which partly offset the bill’s roughly $4 trillion in tax cuts. The Senate SNAP changes are less stringent than in the House version of the bill, which would require all states to share benefit costs regardless of error rates. Currently, the federal government pays the full cost of SNAP benefits. Making states cover a portion would give them a strong incentive to cut benefits, reduce enrollment or even refuse to participate in the program at all.

After getting Byrd Bathed earlier, the Republicans revised the SNAP cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to make it compliant with the Byrd Rule.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

GOP Provision That Makes Trump A King Breaks Senate Rules, Says Official Referee

Language tucked into Republicans' tax bill that makes it too expensive for anyone to sue the Trump administration is likely on its way out.

Jennifer Bendery at HuffPost:

WASHINGTON ― A provision in the GOP’s tax-and-spending bill that would make it nearly impossible for anyone to sue the Trump administration for breaking laws is on track to be stripped from the bill after the Senate parliamentarian said it violates the chamber’s rules. This provision, which is in Senate Republicans’ version of the One Big Beautiful Act, would require anyone seeking an emergency court order ― that is, a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction ― against the federal government to first post a bond that covers all the costs and damages that would be sustained to the federal government.

Judges grant emergency orders to temporarily halt actions like deportations, bans or drilling, while a case is being decided. They typically waive bonds in public interest cases, but under the Senate GOP’s bill, public interest groups, or even individual plaintiffs, would have to cough up millions if not billions of dollars in order to seek an emergency court order against the Trump administration ― money they definitely don’t have. In short, this provision would allow Trump to serve as a king, free to ignore the courts amid his lawlessness. The Senate parliamentarian, the chamber’s nonpartisan adviser on Senate rules, determined Saturday that this provision is not related to budget matters. Republicans are using a process called budget reconciliation to expedite passage of their tax bill, which allows them to advance it with 51 votes instead of 60. But this process is only for budget-related bills, so any language in the bill that the parliamentarian flags as unrelated to budgets is subject to 60 votes. With Democrats united against this provision and Republicans only holding 53 votes, it’s almost certainly coming out of the bill. Democrats are already signaling their plans to invoke the so-called Byrd Rule to strip this and other language out when the Senate begins debate on this bill in the coming days. The Byrd Rule is the Senate rule that requires that any bill being advanced through the budget reconciliation process be only related to budget matters.

[...] It’s possible that Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) could choose to ignore the parliamentarian’s ruling and not allow Democrats the 51-vote threshold to take this language out of the bill. But that would be a major departure from the Senate’s long history of abiding by the chamber’s rule-enforcer. It won’t be clear what Thune’s next step is until the bill hits the Senate floor.

Yet another GOP wish list item gets the Byrd Bath treatment: a provision that would make it nearly impossible for anyone to sue the Trump Regime for breaking laws is likely not included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

See Also:

PoliticusUSA: Senate Democrats Kill Provision Allowing Trump To Ignore Courts In Big Beautiful Bill

[themorningnewsinformer]

Senate Referee Challenges Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’

Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, often an obscure figure in Washington, has become the latest roadblock to former President Donald Trump’s sweeping new tax and spending proposal Trump big beautiful bill, dubbed the “Big Beautiful Bill.” Her rulings have thrown major parts of the legislation into jeopardy just days before the self-imposed July 4 deadline set by the Trump White…

Senate Referee Challenges Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’