Senate Majority Leader John Thune indicated to us that he’d oppose efforts to overrule the Senate’s parliamentarian if certain GOP border security and tax provisions are ruled inconsistent with budget reconciliation rules.
In a brief interview, Thune said on Friday that voting to reinstate sections that are scrapped by the Senate’s nonpartisan rules chief would amount to nuking the legislative filibuster, which Senate Republicans have vowed to preserve.
Here’s what Thune told us when we asked whether he’d advise his party against moving to override the parliamentarian:
Why this is important: Thune is planting a flag here amid concerns that Senate Republicans could try to enact sweeping border policy changes that would normally be prohibited under reconciliation rules. And he’s standing by his promise to keep the filibuster intact.
The budget reconciliation process allows the majority party to circumvent the 60-vote threshold and pass legislation with a simple majority, but only if the bill alters spending or revenue levels. That means policy changes can’t be included. And it’s up to the parliamentarian to determine whether each provision complies with basic reconciliation rules. This is the famous “Byrd Rule,” named after the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.).
Portions that the parliamentarian rules invalid are dropped from the legislation unless lawmakers motion to overrule the parliamentarian. This would require a simple majority.
However, as Thune suggested, this is essentially a backdoor elimination of the filibuster because it would allow Republicans to pass legislation that typically requires 60 votes with just 51.
Key limitations: Addressing border security through the reconciliation process would mean Republicans can only enact reforms that involve funding or have a “non-incidental” budgetary impact — such as allocating additional resources to seal the U.S.-Mexico border. In other words, immigration policy changes that aren’t tied to funding would almost certainly be a no-go.
President-elect Donald Trump is expected to use executive orders on this issue when he enters office, but those are easily reversible by the next president. Trying to go further as part of the reconciliation process — such as codifying Trump’s moves into law — would risk an unfavorable ruling by the parliamentarian or a point of order from Democrats.
This could prompt a pressure campaign from outside influences on overruling the parliamentarian — not dissimilar to how Trump called on Senate Republicans several times during his first term to get rid of the filibuster. They resisted these calls at the time.
GOP senators have shown that they’re not easily moved by these sorts of pressure campaigns (See the pro-Rick Scott lobbying during the GOP leadership race.) And Thune’s declaration is an early indication of how Senate Republican leaders will react if the parliamentarian takes a red pen to certain elements of a reconciliation bill.
But top Senate Republicans don’t think it’ll get to that point, however. They’ve argued that Democrats expanded the scope of reconciliation when they passed the American Rescue Plan in 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, although it’s unclear how those precedents could apply to Republicans’ yet-unwritten reconciliation bill.
