WASHINGTON (AP) – With a powerful new tool, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has new options to boost President Joe Biden’s infrastructure package and other priorities after Republican obstruction in the 50-50 split Senate.
Republicans still promise to do everything in their power to stop Biden, but an official parliamentarian’s opinion this week is a potential game changer. It allows for several democratic options to advance parts of Biden’s agenda – including immigration and Medicare legislation – with 51 votes in the 100-member Senate, rather than the 60 usually needed to move important legislation to filibuster threats.
There has been talk of trying to change the filibuster rules, but it will be a very heavy political lift in the divided and traditionally dedicated Senate.
The White House is pleased with the parliamentarian’s decision, but does not give up the support of some Republicans, despite their strong opposition to paying a large portion of the infrastructure plan with an increase in corporate taxes. The president, press secretary Jen Psaki said, “still believes there is a two-way street.”
However, it is clear that the deeply biased polarization in Washington has led to a new era in legislation. The experienced policy shops on Capitol Hill delve deep into the procedural toolbox to find ways around the grid that Congress usually stands still.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has called for Biden to be biased, declaring on Tuesday that his team will not support the $ 2.3 billion infrastructure package that Biden wants to pay for with the corporate tax hike.
“For a president who has run as a bipartisan party, I have not seen it yet,” McConnell told reporters in Kentucky.
McConnell said Biden is a “great person, I know him well, I like him. We have been friends for years. A moderate he was not yet. ”
Although congressional Democrats already plan to use ‘budget reconciliation’, a special, budget-linked procedure with a 51-vote threshold to pass parts of Biden’s $ 2.3 billion infrastructure package, the parliamentary ruling opens the door to use it on certain other priorities.
Talks revolve around an immigration overhaul that could provide some with a path to citizenship. There are also discussions about using the process to lower the Medicare retirement age from 65 to 60 and other agenda items.
According to Schumer’s office, no decisions were made. Any action still involves gaining consensus from all 50 senators in the Democratic caucus, both progressive and centrist, which can be daunting. But spokesman Justin Goodman welcomed the MP’s view as “an important step forward that the main road is available to Democrats, if necessary.”
The use of budgetary rules to pass comprehensive legislation on a party vote is not new. Congress last month used the budget reconciliation process to approve Biden’s $ 1.9 billion COVID-19 bailout, despite no Republican support.
According to a report by the Congressional Research Service, the process has been used for the first time since 1980 in 1980.
In 2017, a Republican-led Congress used budget reconciliation to approve Trump-era GOP tax cuts on a party line. In 2010, Democrats used it for the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. George W. Bush has twice relied on reconciliation to approve tax cuts, including once when Vice President Dick Cheney cast the ballot.
But the opinion by the non-partisan MP of the Senate, Elizabeth McDonough, Late Monday means that the process could possibly be used several times this year – rather than just two or three times, as expected.
Congress usually has one budget decision per fiscal year, or two every calendar year since the fiscal year begins on October 1st. The MP indicated that the process could be used again if the annual budget resolution is revised.
It’s a faster way to implement certain Biden priorities than to destroy the Senate filibuster. The long-standing use that, according to some senators and critics, is a setback used by pro-segregationists to block civil rights legislation and needs to be changed.
The filibuster allows every senator to object to the consideration of legislation or other matters, and can usually only be overcome with a threshold of 60 votes – a high order in the now evenly divided chamber.
Democrats own the majority in the 50-50 Senate because the party’s vice president, Kamala Harris, can cast a tie.
While Senator Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., And other leading progressives have advocated changing the filibuster rules, more centrist Democrats, including Joe Manchin of West Virginia, are not on board.
Using budget reconciliation can provide a short-term solution, but it is not without its drawbacks. It involves a cumbersome process and sometimes senate sessions are called ‘vote-a-ramas’ throughout the night as senators propose various amendments.
In addition, the budgetary instruments have other limitations in that the proposals must adhere to the budgetary guidelines, which means that not all accounts are eligible.
Earlier this year, the MP rejected a proposal to increase the federal minimum wage to $ 15 per hour as part of the COVID-19 package because it did not comply with budgetary guidelines.
Voting rights, gun violence bills and other legislation are likely to end up in similar limits.
Those wishing to receive changes to the filibuster rules welcomed the budget instrument, but said that changes to the filibuster practice were still needed.
“It’s great that the Senate Democrats will be able to pass many of their economic priorities by a simple majority,” said Eli Zupnick of Fix our Senate, a group advocating filibuster change.
But he said ‘it will not be nearly enough if the filibuster remains as an instrument.’
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Associated Press author Jonathan Lemire contributed to this report.