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Elizabeth MacDonough - Senate Parliamentarian - and the Big Ugly Bill [1]

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Date: 2025-06-25

There's a lady that's taking the shady provisions out of the Big Ugly Bill. That's her job. She's enforcing what's called the Byrd Rule. In reconciliation bills, like a budget bill, extraneous provisions that don't have anything to do with the budget have to be removed when the Parlimentarian rules so.

Elizabeth MacDonough has been the Senate Parlimentarian since 2012. She became an assistant Parlimentarian in 1999.

Recently, with the Big Ugly Bill, she's had a lot of work with the shenanigans House and Senate Republicans tried to put in the bill. The House Parlimentarian serves the same purpose even though the House does not have a Byrd Rule. The House realizes that the Senate Parlimentarian will strip out the necessary parts, but that doesn't stop them from trying. The current House Parlimentarian is Jason Smith, not to confused with the Congressman by the same name.

Sunday, she got rid of one that concerned me, that required a bond to be made by a plaintiff suing the government. If the bond wasn't requested, a contempt of court citation against the government could not be made if the government ignored an injunction or temporary restraining order. And it was retroactive, wiping out court cases where plaintiffs won their case, but the bond was never requested. As it was, this Civil Proceedure Rule 65(c) is on the books that the government can request a ridiculous sum based on what the suit would cost the government and court costs. It is almost never used, but the Trump administration found it. But the new trick is gone.

MacDonough did allow a provision that would prevent states from passing any restrictions on artificial intelligence for 10 years. Josh Hawley is introducing an amendment to kill it. MTG wasn't happy about it either when it passed the House. She missed those two pages, she said.

She nixed an attempt to throw costs of the SNAP program onto the states. She is still examining a budget trick that makes extending Trump's 2017 tax cuts to make them appear to be free, when they actually increase the national debt.

If Republicans don't pull provisions out MacDonough requires, Democrats can require the 60 votes needed to pass it as it no longer qualifies as a reconciliation bill. That would kill passage as all Democrats are opposed to the Big Ugly Bill.

MacDonough rejected provisions to allow states to do immigration enforcement and border security. It's clearly a federal job.

In still another attack on federal workers, she ruled against language that would require an increase in the Federal Employees Retirement System contribution rate if they do not give up civil-service protections and become at-will employees. That means they can easily be fired.

There was even a provision that would allow Trump to reorganize or eliminate federal agencies without Congressional approval. She got rid of it.

Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon said of her rulings in a statement, "There is no way to define this Big Beautiful Betrayal of a bill than families lose, and billionaires win. Democrats are on the side a families and workers and are scrutinizing this bill piece by piece to ensure Republicans can't use the reconciliation process to force their anti-worker policies on the American people."

Shades of DOGE, MacDonough stripped out a provision granting agencies authority to unilaterally rescind funds appropriated by Congress by creating an incentive (read snitch) program for federal employees to identify "unnecessary expenditures" and return that money to the Treasury.

The Republicans wanted to have the U.S. Postal Service sell all their electric vehicles and charging infrastructure. That was shut down as well. What was left in was rescinding a provision Democrats had to purchase more electric vehicles and charging stations. It's amazing how little Republicans feel for government employees and agency functions (except the DOJ and DHS), and the costs to taxpayers in the guise of saving money.

MacDonough caught the Republicans trying to defund the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by reducing its maximum funding to 0% of the Federal Reserve's operating expenses. No more CFPB. Trump targeted the CFPB as an example of government over-regulation and overreach. Musk was also after it, along with the FDIC. Thanks to congress, the rule that they were putting in place to make overdraft fees limited to $5 was removed, so now you pay $35 again. It's just one of the dozens of examples I could give. The CFPB lives on, but Congress can pass legislation to counteract their rules and regulations, just like with any government agency. Sen. Tim Scott, the chairman of the Banking committee isn't giving up. He says he's still going after wasteful spending by the CFPB. For the $6.4 billion on their last budget, which comes from the Federal Reserve, on just one case, got $20 billion back to consumers from deceptive banking practices. They save us all money. Trumpers want the wild west where banks can gamble and go under. Credit card debt used against you while your interest rates go up and up.

MacDonough can't do anything about the trillion dollars cut from Medicaid, SNAP and other entitlement programs. Medicare gets cut because Medicaid gets cut. She can't because it is a budget item.

The Republicans want to do all this, but still give the military $350 billion more.

The plan to cut $1.4 billion from from Federal Reserve employees by changing their pay schedule was shut down by the Parlimentarian.

She stopped cancelation of elements of the Inflation Reduction Act.

One mistake she made was not requiring the Defense Secretary to report what the increase in military spending would be used to do. There was a $100,000 a day penalty for not reporting. Military waste is the first thing that needs to be addressed if you are trying to cut government spending. The Defense Dept. has failed to complete an audit seven times in a row.

Removing EPA standards for air pollution from passenger vehicles was not allowed.

Unbelievable was Republicans trying to change the National Environmental Policy Act to allow developers to fast track environmental reviews and prevent judicial actions if they paid a one-time fee. MacDonough stopped that.

Still another provision allowed oil and gas projects as being automatically compliant with the National Environmental Policy Act, eliminating environmental reviews. MacDonough also stopped that one. Also a change in processing oil and gas leases to be issued within 90 days to successful bidders.

The Republicans tried to include a version of the REINS Act in the bill. Regulations in Need of Scrutiny Act. The full bill hasn't passed Congress. They were trying to sneak it in. If a government regulation or Rule is going to have an annual effect of $100 million or more, it can't be put into effect until approved by both houses and signed by the president. It would mean that the government could not respond to crises, make it impossible for regulations to be implemented, especially environmental and consumer protections. MacDonough got rid of it.

She saved Alaska from a 211 mile road being constructed to serve four large mines and many more smaller mines.

Also removed is millions of acres of public lands mandated to be sold by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service. I'll bet that it was for timber and oil and gas companies.

Jeff Merkley said about that planned sale, "Democrats will not stand idly by well Republicans attempt to circumvent the rules of reconciliation in order to sell off public lands to find tax breaks for billionaires."

But that wasn't all. MacDonough also had to remove a provision that prevented the Secretary of the Interior from reducing fees for solar and wind projects. Also requirements for yearly geothermal lease sales and how geothermal royalties are calculated. Republicans would sell Yellowstone National Park along with Old Faithful if they could get away with it.

Elizabeth MacDonough is doing her best to get rid of the obvious bill parts that have nothing to do with the budget. With 1,100 pages, there's a lot to rule on. If the Republicans try to bypass any of her rulings, then they must get 60 votes to pass the bill and that effectively kills it.

The Byrd Rule is what keeps provisions and amendments that have nothing to do with the budget out of the Big Ugly Bill. The process of the Parlimentarian going through the bill, is nicknamed the "Byrd Bath."

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