Q&A – Overruling the Senate Parliamentarian

It’s been done by both parties with Democrats having pulled the trigger three times and Republicans twice.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
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Q and A over ruling the Senate Parliamentarian. This is
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(00:47):
the message right there, maybe for a future Q and A.
And this is this is one of multiples that received
about the Senate Parliamentarian Brian. Is this the same parliamentarian
that allowed Obamacare under reconciliation? Yeah? And I like this
one in particular because it's going to give me an
angle to speak about something that is relatable to what's

(01:09):
going on right now in reference to what did happen
with reconciliation involving Obamacare. So today's question is in response
to my coverage of the Senate's vote Arama but Arama
process Monday that continued all through the morning yesterday. I
was talking about this week guest hosting from Markleven on Monday,

(01:30):
and specifically the parliamentarian Elizabeth McDonough denied some of the
planned Republican Medicaid cost savings in the Big Beautiful Bill
Act that, of course, in the end was renamed by
Chuck Schummer the Act just the Act of particular note,

(01:51):
the effort to strip illegal aliens of Medicaid coverage was
determined to not be reconciliation ELIGI, requiring sixty votes in
the Senate to enact the change. So during Monday's voter rama,
two efforts were made to enact that change, each failing
with only fifty six yay votes, as almost all Democrats

(02:15):
in the Senate voted to continue to allow illegal immigrants
access to medicate, including criminal illegal immigrants. Now, while the
vote was highly revealing, it also raised the question about
overruling the Senence parliamentarian, and it was at that point
that it called on Vice President Jdvans to overrule the
Senate parliamentarian to allow for a simple majority vote, something

(02:39):
he didn't do. So about that and also the question
raised by today's Q and A about the parliamentarian and Obamacare,
and addressing the question about whether the curl current parliamentarian
is the same one who adopted a rule on an

(03:03):
aspect of Obamacare, the answer is no. Elizabeth McDonald was
appointed to the position in twenty twelve after the passage
of the Affordable Care Acts, also known as Obamacare. But
about that aspect of today's question, it is important to
note that Obamacare wasn't passed through the reconciliation process. The

(03:24):
original law passed on December twenty fourth, Christmas Eve, two
thousand and nine, with sixty votes, which also is a
reminder about how awful the condition of the Republican Party
was after that two thousand and eight election where Democrats
had sixty votes in the Senate, they did have a
filibuster proof majority in the Senate, so no Obamacare passed

(03:48):
on Christmas Eve two thousand and nine with sixty votes.
Where the confusion on the reconciliation process comes into play
with the ACA is that it was later an ended
in twenty ten through the Healthcare and Education Reconciliation Act,
and so there was just one aspect of it that

(04:09):
was tweaked, not the law that was passed through reconciliation.
That was a ruling by the Senate Parliamentarian that was
consistent with long established procedures. The way that budget reconciliation
works and the parliamentarian rules on it. The parliamentary is
tasked with evaluating the policy proposals to see if they

(04:31):
align with general spending, revenue, and debt levels under previously
established law. Okay, that is for all the stuff you
hear when it comes to reconciliation. The task general doesn't
align with general spending, general revenue, general debt levels under

(04:53):
previously established law. And given that's the case, obviously there's
subjectivity to the process. In the case of the ACA amendments,
because the law had already been previously established, it was
consistent with established procedures for the law to be amended
with a simple majority reconciliation vote. In fact, this dynamic

(05:16):
is also in play as it pertains to the Tax
Cut and Jobs Act. You might recall that due to
the limitations of the reconciliation process. Under the Bird Rule,
Republicans were not able to make twenty seventeen's tax cut
and jobs ACKed permanent. That's why we're having the conversation
about what happens if no new law passes, because those

(05:39):
tax cuts would expire this year. However, under the One
Big Beautiful Bill Act, the Parliamentarian did rule that Republicans
may now make those tax cuts permanent. So what they
weren't able to do through reconciliation permanently in twenty seventeen,
the same parliamentarian is saying you can now go ahead

(06:01):
and do that because for seven and a half years
this has been what we've been doing, and therefore it
is now aligned with general spending, general revenue, general debt
levels established under previous law. I see Joel nodding that
made sense. Yes, okay, good so, which, by the way,

(06:22):
I'm not saying yay or n a on the Parliamentary
and making good decisions here. But I also haven't seen,
even though I disagree just on a policy level with
some of the outcomes of the Parliamentary's decisions, I haven't
seen where she really is coloring big time outside the lines.
It's easy to kind of go after her. But if
you take a look at what she's actually tasked with
doing and the principle of it, for the most part,

(06:45):
she colors in those lines. And again, nothing she does
is binding. So there's nothing that stops Gady events from
stopping her. So I just I think it's important to
keep a focus on where the power and the emphasis
in this process really is. So anyway, with that said,
as I've just mentioned, the parliamentarian's role is one thing.
They are tasked with providing advice. Nothing they do is binding.

(07:10):
Nothing of parliamentarian issues is a mandate. The office of
the Senate Parliamentarian was established in nineteen thirty five. Since then,
there are five times a parliamentarian has been overruled twice
through a simple majority Senate vote, three times by the
President of the Senate, who is the vice president. The
parliamentarian was overruled by Vice President Hubert Humphrey, a Democrat, twice.

(07:35):
You have rolled the parliamentarian in nineteen sixty seven and
nineteen sixty nine. In nineteen seventy five, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller,
a Republican, overruled the Senate parliamentarian. And then it's happened
twice somewhat recently in things that you will almost certainly remember.
These have happened in simple majority Senate votes. So you

(07:59):
might recall the end of the original judicial filipbuster and
confirmation process for presidential appointments. In twenty thirteen, the Democrat
led Senate ended the philipbuster majority, allowing a simple majority
vote for presidential confirmations, and then in twenty seventeen the

(08:22):
Republican led Senate went ahead and ended it for Supreme
Court nominees. And so those are the two most recent
times that there has been an overruling of the parliamentary
So there you go. And in my view JD. Van
should have made it three times to curb abuse of
medicaid by illegal immigrants, given that Democrats were not willing

(08:46):
to do it,