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parliamentarian
Senate GOP Gives Dems a Chance to Tank Trump's Budget Bill—Will They Take It?
"Given the high stakes of the budget bill—soaring inequality as benefits for the poor are slashed to finance tax cuts for the rich—every tool at Senate Democrats' disposal should be employed," wrote journalist David Dayen.
May 29, 2025
By voting to overrule the Senate parliamentarian last week, the chamber's Republicans handed their political opponents a procedural weapon that could be used to hold off or even kill the House-passed reconciliation package that's central to President Donald Trump's legislative agenda.
The question is: Will Senate Democrats take advantage?
Last Thursday, Senate Republicans used the filibuster-proof Congressional Review Act (CRA) to approve a resolution revoking a federal waiver that allowed California to set tougher vehicle pollution standards. In doing so, the GOP majority ignored the parliamentarian's determination that the waiver did not qualify as a rule subject to the CRA.
Both before and after the vote, Senate Democrats warned their Republican colleagues that the move could come back to bite them in the future.
"Is this really the path we want to go down?" Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) asked in a floor speech earlier this month. "A future Democratic administration could submit every oil and gas lease issued since 1996 as a rule, as the subject of disapproval resolutions... Is it worth going nuclear, knowing full well the Pandora's Box this would open?"
The American Prospect's David Dayen wrote Wednesday that because the Senate "operates largely on precedent," Republicans' vote effectively means that "virtually any action the executive branch takes could be construed as a rule, and therefore subject to fast-track congressional review."
"For this reason, Democrats could subject the Senate to time-consuming resolution votes repeatedly, to such a degree that the Senate would not have time to do anything else for the rest of this session of Congress," Dayen wrote. "In other words, Democrats could respond to the waiver vote by paralyzing the Senate, and stopping the giant Trump tax bill from ever reaching the floor."
While Democrats are in the Senate minority, it only takes 30 senators to force a CRA resolution of disapproval to the floor of the upper chamber. Under CRA procedures, "any senator may make a nondebatable motion to proceed to consider the disapproval resolution on the floor." If that privileged motion is approved, the disapproval resolution would be subject to up to 10 hours of debate.
"The bottom line is this: If you found something like 1,000 current or former agency actions—a reasonable number considering all the work executive branch agencies do—you would probably have enough to keep the Senate debating and voting on CRA resolutions through the duration of this Congress," Dayen wrote. "Given the high stakes of the budget bill—soaring inequality as benefits for the poor are slashed to finance tax cuts for the rich—every tool at Senate Democrats' disposal should be employed. Republicans just handed them a big one."
As Dayen pointed out, Senate Democrats—including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)—are aware of the hugely disruptive potential of the precedent set by their Republican counterparts.
In a May 1 letter to top Senate Republicans, Schumer and 19 other Democrats warned that if the GOP moved ahead with their plan to bypass the parliamentarian, "the CRA could be weaponized to retroactively invalidate decades of agency actions—including adjudications, permits, and licensing decisions that were never previously considered 'rules'—and effectively hijack the Senate floor."
It's far from clear that Democrats would be open to exploiting the procedural loophole Republicans created, even as members of the minority party face growing pressure from their base to fight back more aggressively against the Trump-GOP agenda—which includes catastrophic cuts to Medicaid, federal nutrition assistance, and green energy programs.
In a piece for the Prospect earlier this month, former House Oversight Committee staffer Todd Phillips outlined the potential CRA strategy. Asked by the Prospect on Wednesday, Phillips said he had not yet received any response on the idea from congressional Democrats.
"But we know they're aware of it; they have said it out loud," wrote Dayen on Wednesday. "They could start the campaign any day now."
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Senate Budget Plan Kicks Working Class in the Face, Hands Billions Upon Billions to the Rich
"No parliamentary tricks will change the fact that Trump, Musk, and his allies in Congress are trying to give a huge handout to the ultrawealthy while forcing the rest of us to foot the bill," wrote one watchdog.
Apr 03, 2025
Watchdogs and other critics swiftly denounced a budget blueprint unveiled by Senate Republicans on Wednesday that endeavors to get the GOP one step closer to delivering additional spending and trillions in tax cuts desired by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Observers are also condemning Republicans' plans to skirt the Senate parliamentarian and use a controversial gimmick to make an extension of provisions from Trump's 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act look "free"—even the cost of extending those cuts would be nearly $4 trillion over 10 years, and the Senate proposal includes a total of $5.3 trillion in tax cuts.
"Let's be clear: Trump and his allies in Congress are cooking the books in broad daylight. They don't want Americans to know that their scam of a tax bill, which gives trillions in giveaways to their billionaire and corporate donors, costs over $5 trillion," said David Kass, the executive director of the advocacy group Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF), in a statement on Wednesday.
Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the watchdog group Public Citizen, referenced Trump's billionaire adviser Elon Musk when declaring that "Republicans have chosen to prioritize the Trump-Musk agenda of picking the pockets of everyday people to shower billionaires with tax giveaways."
The Senate budget blueprint would increase the country's debt limit by $5 trillion and permanently extend tax cuts passed through Trump's 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, according to NPR.
Extending those tax cuts would primarily benefit the wealthy. According to a 2024 analysis from the Tax Policy Center, households making about $450,000 or more a year would receive nearly half of the benefits of extending key provisions of Trump's 2017 tax cuts.
According to a February report from ATF, the wealthiest Republicans on tax writing panels could save themselves millions through extending these cuts, particularly by keeping in place a higher estate tax exemption.
The Senate budget blueprint includes the $4.5 trillion tax plan passed by the House of Representatives in February, according to NPR. The House plan is crafted so the only way to achieve the requirements of the budget resolution is to enact steep cuts to Medicaid. The budget resolution also makes cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) all but certain.
Sharon Parrott, the president of the nonpartisan research organization the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, framed the Senate budget plan like this: "Congress is speeding down a path to a deeply harmful budget and tax 'reconciliation' bill that showers tax cuts on millionaires, billionaires, and corporations—and pays for it in part by raising healthcare and food costs through cuts in Medicaid and SNAP, increasing hardship and leaving millions without health coverage."
In order to move the legislation forward, Senate Republicans are planning on bypassing the Senate parliamentarian—who has sway over whether legislation can be sped up through the filibuster-free reconciliation process—on a crucial budgeting matter, according to Wednesday reporting from The New York Times.
By asserting that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, can decide the cost of legislation Republicans are angling not to get the parliamentarian's sign-off on their claim that extending the tax cuts will be free, per the Times.
The GOP is attempting to make the tax cut extension appear free by using the "current policy" baseline rather than the "current law" baseline. One expert who spoke to the Times compared it to "taking an expensive weeklong vacation and then assuming you can spend an extra $1,000 per day forever since you are no longer staying at the Plaza."
A trio of experts writing for the Center for American Progress wrote that the approach is unprecedented in the past five decades since the Congressional Budget Office was formed and lawmakers acted within the current budget framework.
"Don't be fooled: the only way Senate Republicans can pay for their tax cuts to the wealthy is by taking a chainsaw to Medicaid, school lunches for kids, and driving up the cost of groceries and housing," said the executive director of the watchdog Accoutable.US, Tony Carrk, on Wednesday. "The math doesn't add up, and no parliamentary tricks will change the fact that Trump, Musk, and his allies in Congress are trying to give a huge handout to the ultrawealthy while forcing the rest of us to foot the bill."
Republicans narrowly control both chambers of Congress. According to Politico, the Senate will vote as soon as Thursday to consider the blueprint, which if adopted, would allow the House to try to adopt it before breaking for a two week recess.
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Urging Senate to 'Ignore the Parliamentarian,' Sanders to Force Vote on $15 Minimum Wage Amendment
"I regard it as absurd that the parliamentarian, a Senate staffer elected by no one, can prevent a wage increase for 32 million workers."
Mar 01, 2021
Calling on the Senate Democratic majority to disregard the advice of the unelected parliamentarian, Sen. Bernie Sanders late Monday announced he will force a vote this week on an amendment to include a $15 minimum wage provision in the pending $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package.
"At a time when millions of workers are earning starvation wages, when the minimum wage has not been raised by Congress since 2007 and stands at a pathetic $7.25 an hour, it is time to raise the minimum wage to a living wage," Sanders, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said in a statement.
"The Senate should ignore the parliamentarian's advice, which is wrong in a number of respects."
--Sen. Bernie Sanders
The Vermont senator's announcement came as the White House and Senate Democrats signaled a retreat from the effort to include a minimum wage increase in the coronavirus relief package after the parliamentarian advised last week that the measure would run afoul of the Byrd Rule, which requires provisions of reconciliation bills to have a direct--not "merely incidental"--impact on the federal budget.
Citing two anonymous Democratic aides, the Washington Post reported Monday that "Senate Democrats will move forward with a version of the relief bill that does not attempt to raise the minimum wage." Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a floor speech Monday that the chamber will begin voting on the sprawling relief package this week, with an initial procedural vote expected as early as Wednesday.
In his statement Monday night, Sanders said he was "extremely disappointed by the decision of the parliamentarian, who ruled that the minimum wage provision was inconsistent with the Byrd Rule and the reconciliation process."
Echoing the calls of progressive House Democrats and dozens of grassroots advocacy groups representing millions of people across the U.S., Sanders said his "own personal view is that the Senate should ignore the parliamentarian's advice, which is wrong in a number of respects."
"I am not sure, however, that my view at this point is the majority view in the Democratic caucus," the Vermont senator added, alluding to opposition from Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.). "Obviously, as soon as we can, we must end the filibuster that currently exists in the U.S. Senate. Given the enormous crises facing working families today, we cannot allow a minority of the Senate to obstruct what the vast majority of the American people want and need."
\u201cLet's do this. 60% of the American people want us to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour. In the Senate, we would call that a "super-majority."\u201d— Warren Gunnels (@Warren Gunnels) 1614644049
Progressives in recent days have pushed Vice President Kamala Harris to overrule the parliamentarian's advice, which she has the constitutional authority to do. Should the vice president opt to use that authority, it would take 60 votes in the Senate to overrule her.
But White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was adamant during a Monday briefing that Harris will not attempt to overrule the parliamentarian, the official tasked with interpreting Senate rules.
Asked by NBC News reporter Geoff Bennett why the White House appears to be fighting harder to salvage the collapsing nomination of budget office pick Neera Tanden than to keep the minimum wage increase in the coronavirus relief package, Psaki accused Bennett of "mixing a few things kind of irresponsibly."
\u201c.@GeoffRBennett: Why push for Neera Tanden's confirmation and not push as hard, one could say, for raising the minimum wage?\n\nJEN PSAKI: I think that's mixing a few things kind of irresponsibly, if I'm being totally honest\u201d— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1614629552
Sanders made clear Monday that he will continue pushing to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour if his coronavirus relief amendment fails to pass this week.
Following the parliamentarian's advisory ruling against the proposed pay raise last week, Sanders and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) began crafting a backup plan that would impose tax penalties on large corporations that don't pay their employees $15 an hour. But Sanders and Wyden reportedly dropped the plan after it became clear that the measure would be too difficult to implement and that there wouldn't be sufficient support to include it in the emerging Covid-19 relief package.
Speaking to the press about his new $15 minimum wage amendment, Sanders said Monday that "there will be a roll call vote, and we'll see who votes for it and doesn't."
"I would suggest that those who vote against it from a political point of view, that's a mistake. The American people want to see that minimum wage raised," Sanders continued. "Let me be very clear--if we fail in this legislation, I will be back."
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