Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R) on Thursday called for Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) to fire Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough “ASAP,” hours after she delivered a major ruling against a Republican proposal to slash hundreds of billions of dollars in federal Medicaid spending to help pay for President Trump’s tax agenda.
The parliamentarian also ruled against provisions to prohibit federal funding of Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for adults or kids whose immigration status cannot be immediately verified and to lower federal Medicaid funding for states that provide Medicaid coverage to immigrants in the country illegally.
“The WOKE Senate Parliamentarian, who was appointed by Harry Reid and advised Al Gore, just STRUCK DOWN a provision BANNING illegals from stealing Medicaid from American citizens. This is a perfect example of why Americans hate THE SWAMP,” Tuberville posted on X, the social media site.
“Unelected bureaucrats think they know better than U.S. Congressmen who are elected BY THE PEOPLE. Her job is not to push a woke agenda. THE SENATE PARLIAMENTARIAN SHOULD BE FIRED ASAP,” he said.
Tuberville posted his comments publicly around the same time that Thune told reporters that he would not attempt to overrule the parliamentarian with a simple-majority vote on the floor.
A Senate GOP source familiar with the parliamentarian’s ruling on Medicaid eligibility and health care provider taxes said that Republicans will try to rework the provisions to keep them in the massive bill.
“We’ll continue our work and find a solution to achieve the desired results. Also, this is not as fatal as Dems are portraying it to be,” the source said.
Republican Sen. John Kennedy (La.) told reporters Thursday that he doesn’t think the GOP leadership would attempt to oust MacDonough from the parliamentarian’s office, asserting that Republicans “respect” her rulings.
“I don’t think that will happen,” he said. “We all have respect for the parliamentarian. I think that she’s very fair and I don’t think that she should be fired nor do I think she will be fired.”
Thune told reporters Thursday morning that he would not push a vote to overrule the parliamentarian.
“That would not be a good outcome for getting a bill done,” he said.
Thune said he doesn’t view the parliamentarian’s ruling against the biggest spending cut in the bill as necessarily fatal to getting the legislation passed.
“We were obviously trying to get as much in terms of savings as we could. We pushed hard to try and achieve that and we knew that it was going to be an interesting conversation and we didn’t know for sure how she was going to come down on it,” he said.
“There are things we can do, there are other ways of getting to that same outcome. We may not have everything that we wanted in terms of the provider tax reforms but if we can get most of the reforms there, get the savings that come with it — this is all about saving the taxpayers money,” Thune said.
Senate Republicans are using budget reconciliations rules to pass their bill so that they can get around a Senate filibuster, which would otherwise allow Democrats to block the measure.
The parliamentarian is charged with determining whether parts of the bill comply with the Byrd rule, which requires provisions in a budget reconciliation measure to pass a multi-part test including that they are primarily budgetary in nature.
Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) appointed MacDonough in January of 2012 to serve as parliamentarian. She is the first woman to serve in the role.
She is the sixth Senate parliamentarian, and worked in the parliamentarian’s office for nearly a decade before she was tapped to replace Alan Frumin.
Al Weaver contributed to this story.
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