Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is eyeing an in-the-weeds rule that could give him extra opportunities to bypass the Senate’s filibuster roadblock and pass sweeping legislation with a simple majority.
If the Senate parliamentarian agrees, Schumer could use the budget reconciliation process to pass at least one more bill with 51 votes instead of the usual 60-vote threshold required to avoid a filibuster.
The change would be significant. Though Democrats have trifecta control of the House, Senate, and White House, they are largely unable to pass many of their priorities through a 50-50 divided Senate because avoiding a filibuster requires the support of at least 10 Republicans.
Earlier this year, Democrats circumvented a filibuster and used the budget reconciliation process to pass the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan without the support of any Republicans.
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However, It was widely thought that the process could be used only once per fiscal year. The American Resue Plan accounted for fiscal year 2021, leaving Schumer just one more opportunity to use reconciliation this year to affect fiscal year 2022, which starts in October.
But Schumer thinks that one word buried in the Congressional Budget Act could expand the number of opportunities to use the process.
“Recently, top policy aides to Majority Leader Schumer made the argument to the Senate parliamentarian that Section 304 allows for at least one additional set of reconciliation bills related to revenue, spending, and the public debt to be considered for fiscal year 2021,” an aide to Schumer told Politico.
That section says: “At any time after the concurrent resolution on the budget for a fiscal year has been agreed to pursuant to section 301, and before the end of such fiscal year, the two Houses may adopt a concurrent resolution on the budget which revises or reaffirms the concurrent resolution on the budget for such fiscal year most recently agreed to.”
The key word: revises.
If Schumer does pursue trying to use that rule to pass more massive spending provisions with a simple majority, decision-making power over whether it is permissible will be in the hands of the Senate parliamentarian.
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That could set up a similar showdown Democrats faced earlier this year when they tried to push a $15 an hour minimum wage hike through the reconciliation process in the American Rescue Plan. The Senate parliamentarian said that measure fell outside the scope of what is allowed under the process, violating the “Byrd Rule” that says any measures “extraneous” to the budget cannot be passed through the budget reconciliation process.
“No final decision has been made on the legislative strategy,” a Schumer aide told Axios. “Schumer wants to maximize his options to allow Senate Democrats multiple pathways to advance President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda if Senate Republicans try to obstruct or water down a bipartisan agreement.”
