Senate Parliamentarian: Democrats Only Have One More Chance To Stop GOP Obstruction This Year

Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough issued a new ruling that would allow Democrats to use automatic budget reconciliation just one more time this year to bypass Republicans to advance President Biden’s agenda.

MacDonough ruled that a revision to the 2021 budget resolution cannot be automatically discharged from the Senate Budget Committee, according to The Hill. This means that Democrats would need at least one Republican on the 11-11 panel to vote with them if they want to use reconciliation on more than one occasion before the legislative session ends in October.

She warned that allowing for automatic discharge of revisions to the budget resolution out of the Budget Committee and onto the floor would risk “eroding the budget process,” characterizing it as a scenario in which the budget panel would be churning out “meaningless, stop-gap measures or shells for future consideration.”

The ruling is a blow for Democrats as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) will only be able to use reconciliation one more time this year to pass Biden’s sweeping policies with a simple majority instead of with 60 votes required by the Senate filibuster.

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Prior to the ruling, Schumer thought he might be able to pass two or even three more reconciliation bills in 2021, and thereby bypass GOP filibusters and enact Biden’s agenda through several packages.

The Parliamentarian’s ruling means Democrats will not be able to split the $2.3 trillion American Jobs Plan, the $1.8 trillion American Families Plan, and the president’s proposals to expand Medicare and lower the price of prescription drugs into separate reconciliation packages. Instead, it will all have to be joined into one budget reconciliation package in order to advance with a simple majority vote.

Democrats can now only create multiple reconciliation vehicles based on the 2021 budget resolution or 2022 budget resolution if they can persuade a Republican on the Budget Committee to vote to revise the budget.

The ruling is one more reason for Democrats to get rid of the filibuster.