She's unelected, unknown — and has the power to veto Trump's 'big, beautiful bill.' Who is the Senate parliamentarian?

Yahoo

13 hours ago

Republicans in Congress have spent months hammering out the details of the massive tax and spending plan they have named the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, making a series of changes in hopes of crafting a plan that can gain the support of the GOP's far-right fringe, moderates and everyone in between.
For all of the different factions that must sign off on whatever ends up in the final bill, one of the most important people Republicans will need to win over isn't a member of their party at all. A little-known bureaucrat called the Senate parliamentarian ultimately has final say on what can and can't go into this kind of legislation, not based on her political beliefs, but on her judgment of what the Senate rules allow.
Over the course of the past week, the parliamentarian has decided that a long list of key provisions that have been part of the "big, beautiful bill" cannot be included in their current forms.
Here's a list of just some of the items that have been vetoed:
A plan to sell off millions of acres of public lands.
Defunding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Blocking federal grants for 'sanctuary cities.'
Cuts to federal food assistance.
Barring undocumented immigrants from receiving Medicaid.
Rollbacks of green energy funding and emissions standards.
New Medicaid tax rules that would have brought in hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue.
Republicans will now have to either rewrite each of these sections of the bill in a way that satisfies the parliamentarian or be forced to abandon them completely so they don't prevent the entire package from becoming law.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Thursday that he was prepared for certain elements of the bill to be rejected but is hopeful that his party can adjust and put together a final plan that maintains their priorities.
'We didn't know for sure how she was going to come down on it,' he said. 'But there are things that we can do, there are other ways of getting to that same outcome.'
The rules that dictate how Congress operates are extraordinarily complicated. So complicated that even the savviest of policy-minded members can't keep track of it all. The position of parliamentarian was created in the early 20th century to essentially serve as the referee to make sure that everything in the legislature is done by the book. For decades, their job was largely to serve as a nonpartisan adviser on proper legislative procedure to the two branches of Congress.
The Senate parliamentarian has become a much more important figure in recent decades because of the filibuster. Officially, bills only need a simple majority to pass through the Senate, but the filibuster allows any single senator to raise that threshold to 60 votes. It's been nearly 50 years since either party has held 60 or more seats in the chamber, which means that the filibuster can effectively sink any bill that doesn't have at least some bipartisan backing.
As the use of the filibuster became more and more common, Congress was finding it difficult to get even its most basic functions done, particularly its duty to pass a budget that allows the government to operate at all. So in the 1970s, they invented a process called reconciliation, which created a way to get around the filibuster and pass bills with a simple majority again. Some of the most important legislation of the past half-century — including the tax cuts passed during President Trump's first term and former President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act — have only become law because of reconciliation.
The catch is that reconciliation is only available for bills that primarily concern the budget. Anything else is still subject to the filibuster. There are some other rules that disqualify even some budget-centric proposals from reconciliation. Judgments on what does and doesn't qualify for reconciliation can be extraordinarily technical, and members of Congress have obvious incentives to fudge things in order to get their preferred policies through the door. That's why the ultimate say belongs to the parliamentarian.
Whenever a reconciliation bill is being prepared in the Senate, the parliamentarian will comb through every detail to determine which parts can move forward with a majority vote and which ones are subject to the filibuster. Rarely do huge mega-bills like the GOP's spending plan make it through this process unscathed.
It's common for members of both parties to disagree with the parliamentarian's assessments, but under current rules, their judgment is final.
The current parliamentarian is named Elizabeth MacDonough. She's a 59-year-old Washington, D.C., native who has worked for the federal government in some capacity for most of the past 35 years. She was appointed as parliamentarian in 2012, becoming the first woman — and just the sixth person in history — to hold the position. At the time, she was described as 'down-to-earth,' 'diligent' and 'a pistol' by figures in Congress who knew her well.
Since assuming the role, she has largely stayed out of the public eye. She purportedly only makes one public speech a year and does not speak directly to the media. During her tenure, control of the Senate has flipped three separate times — first to Republicans in 2015, then to Democrats in 2021 and back to the GOP this year. In addition to advising leaders from both parties through several reconciliation bills over the years, she also guided the Senate through two separate impeachment trials and was responsible for protecting Electoral College certificates from the mob attacking the Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack.
Ultimately, the GOP doesn't actually have to listen to the parliamentarian. There is a provision that's often called the 'nuclear option' that allows Senate rules to be rewritten by a majority vote. If Republicans used it, they could overrule the parliamentarian's decision, change the standards for reconciliation or even fire her with just 50 votes. Some members of the party want to do just that.
Florida Rep. Greg Stuebe called on the GOP to ignore the parliamentarian in a post on social media, writing, 'It is time for our elected leaders to take back control.'
Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville went a step further in his own post. 'THE SENATE PARLIAMENTARIAN SHOULD BE FIRED ASAP,' he wrote.
Thune, who would have to be on board with any action taken against the parliamentarian, said the nuclear option is not on the table. 'That would not be a good option for getting a bill done,' he told reporters Thursday.
Though Thune didn't elaborate on his thinking, Senate leaders from both parties have historically been hesitant to take bold steps to undermine the filibuster out of fear that it would leave them with less power to stop legislation the next time they are in the minority.
Republicans have already floated a few altered proposals to get some of their policy priorities back into the bill, but it remains to be seen how drastic the changes to the final package might be and whether these new plans can survive the parliamentarian's scrutiny.