John Thune needs to do something about Obama-era parliamentarian kneecapping Trump’s megabill

MAGA supporters are outraged that the Senate parliamentarian is dictating what the Republican-controlled Senate may include in the Big Beautiful Bill (BBB). They’re correct, and Majority Leader John Thune needs to somehow reconcile the problem.

Established by rules approved by two-thirds of the Senate, the parliamentarian is majority leader-appointed and is not filled by a sitting senator. The job description is to enforce Senate rules on Senate procedures in a non-partisan manner.

The current parliamentarian, Elizabeth Macdonough, was appointed in 2012 by then-Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat. She is not term-limited and will serve until she steps down or is replaced by the majority leader. Her Democrat provenance is all well and good as long as she enforces Senate rules in a non-partisan way. But that is not what she is doing.

The parliamentarian has determined, for example, that the rollback of Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provisions is not possible through the special Senate process known as reconciliation, even though reconciliation was how the Senate was able to vote on the IRA in the first place.

This means that the IRA rollbacks, including hundreds of billions in climate spending cuts already approved by the House, will require 60 Senate votes versus only a bare majority under the reconciliation procedure.

The parliamentarian’s decision clearly lies somewhere in the abyss between arbitrariness and hypocrisy. The decision is her call and is not practically appealable. This decision is a bitter pill to swallow given that voters elected President Donald Trump and a Republican-led Senate to pass the BBB.

There are obvious questions as to why a leftover Harry Reid appointee is dictating what Republicans can vote on, and why Leader Thune doesn’t just replace Macdonough as is his right.

Instead of replacing the parliamentarian, Thune found a clever procedural way around Macdonough last month when he shepherded through the Senate the Congressional Review Act (CRA) bill to strip California of its ability to establish a mandate for electric vehicles. She had disapproved of that vote, too.

But the BBB is larger and way more complex than the CRA vote. Maybe Thune could circumvent the parliamentarian again, but it’s not obvious how.

Thune is unlikely to replace Macdonough because that would upset members of his own caucus. Such a move might open up different cans of worms that might entirely jeopardize the BBB. It is also unlikely that Thune would move to change Senate rules because that might open up debate and changes to the all-important filibuster rule.

The simplest and most honest thing to have happen is for the parliamentarian to reverse herself and admit that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Democrats jammed the IRA through a 50-50 Senate through reconciliation (with Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote). Republicans should be able to roll it back the same way.

As she seems unlikely to do this, Thune may have no choice but to replace her or invent a way around her with the support of Senate Republicans. It’s quite a problem he has on his hands, but he wanted the majority leader job. Now he’s got to do it.

Steve Milloy is a biostatistician and lawyer, publishes JunkScience.com, and is on X @JunkScience.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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