WASHINGTON (AP) – With a powerful new tool, Senate Leader Chuck Schumer has new options to potentially improve President Joe Biden’s infrastructure package and other priorities beyond Republican obstruction in the 50-50 divided Senate.
Republicans still promise to do anything to stop Biden, but the opinion of an official MP this week is a potential game changer. It unleashes multiple options for Democrats to advance parts of Biden’s agenda – including immigration and Medicare legislation – with 51 votes in the 100-member Senate rather than the 60 typically required to move major legislation beyond filibuster threats.
There have been attempts to change the rules of the filibuster, but that would be a very tough political lift in the divided and traditionally committed Senate.
The White House was encouraged by the MP’s ruling, but is not giving up on the support of some Republicans, despite their strong opposition to pay for much of the infrastructure plan with an increase in corporate tax. The president, said press secretary Jen Psaki, “continues to believe … that there is a two-pronged way forward.”
However, it is clear that the deep partisan polarization in Washington has sparked a new era of legislation. The veteran policymakers on Capitol Hill are digging deep into the procedural toolbox to find ways to get around the deadlock that typically brings Congress to a halt.
Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell chided Biden for bias and said on Tuesday that his side would not support the $ 2.3 trillion infrastructure package Biden wants to pay with the corporate tax increase.
“For a president running as a bipartis, I haven’t seen that yet,” McConnell told reporters in Kentucky.
McConnell said Biden is a “wonderful person. I know him well, I like him.” We have been friends for years. He has not been a moderate. “
While congressional Democrats were already planning to resort to “ budget reconciliation, ” a special budget-linked procedure with a 51-vote threshold to hit parts of Biden’s $ 2.3 trillion infrastructure package, the ruling opens. parliamentarian the door to use it for certain other priorities. .
Conversations swirl around an immigration revolution that could provide a path to citizenship for some. There is also debate about using the process to lower the Medicare retirement age from 65 to 60 and other agenda items.
Schumer’s office said no decisions have been made. Any action still implies that all 50 senators in the Democratic caucus, both progressives and centrists, must gain consensus, which can be daunting. But spokesman Justin Goodman welcomed the MP’s view as “an important step forward in making this important avenue available to Democrats if needed.”
The use of the fiscal rules to pass sweeping legislation on a party line vote is not new. Congress last month used the budget reconciliation process to approve Biden’s massive $ 1.9 trillion COVID-19 bailout, despite no Republican backing.
The process was first used in 1980 and has been used most of the years since then, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service.
In 2017, a Republican-controlled congress used budgetary reconciliation to pass Trump-era GOP tax cuts on a party line vote. In 2010, Democrats used it for the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. George W. Bush twice relied on reconciliation to approve tax cuts, including once when Vice President Dick Cheney tied the score.
But the opinion of the impartial Senate MP, Elizabeth McDonough, late Monday means the process could potentially be used multiple times this year – instead of just two or three times, as expected.
Typically, Congress has one budget resolution every fiscal year, or two every calendar year since the fiscal year begins October 1. The MP indicated that if the annual budget resolution is revised, the process can be used again.
That’s a faster path to passage for certain Biden priorities than getting rid of the senatorial filibuster, the long-running practice that some senators and critics say is a throwback used by pro-segregationists to block civil rights law and needs to be changed.
The filibuster allows any senator to object to consideration of legislation or other matters, and can usually only be overcome with a threshold of 60 votes – quite a task in the now evenly distributed chamber.
Democrats hold the majority in the 50-50 Senate because the party’s vice president, Kamala Harris, can bring a tie.
While Senator Jeff Merkley, D-Ore. And other leading progressives have advocated changing the filibuster’s rules, more centrist Democrats, including West Virginia-based Joe Manchin, aren’t on board.
Using the budget reconciliation could provide a short-term solution, but it is not without its drawbacks. It involves a cumbersome process and sometimes all-night senate sessions called ‘vote-a-ramas’ as senators table multiple amendments.
In addition, the budgetary instruments have other limitations: the proposals must comply with 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 an hour as part of the COVID-19 package because it failed to meet budget guidelines.
Voting rights, gun violence bills and other legislation would likely run into similar limits.
Those looking for changes to the filibuster rules welcomed the budget tool, but said changes to the filibuster practice are still needed.
“It’s great that Senate Democrats will be able to pass many of their economic priorities with a simple majority,” said Eli Zupnick of Fix our Senate, a group advocating for filibuster change.
But he said, “That won’t be nearly enough if the filibuster remains as a resource.”
Associated Press writer Jonathan Lemire contributed to this report.