A spokesperson for the Senate Agriculture Committee said Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough appears open to a revised Republican proposal to shift some costs for food assistance to states after rejecting the initial draft of it over the weekend.
The Senate Republican plan would require states for the first time to pay a sizeable share of food benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) unless they reduce the error rate for delivering benefits to below 6 percent.
Senate Agriculture Committee Chair John Boozman (R-Ark.) said earlier Tuesday that MacDonough had accepted the revised language, but a committee spokesperson clarified that she has been “responsive to the revised language” but hasn’t made a ruling.
Republican staff reworked the proposal to give states more “flexibility” and “information” about implementing the program.
He said the revised language would achieve roughly the same level of savings as the proposal the parliamentarian ruled against over the weekend.
“It’s intact. It’s very little change. Just gives the states more information to work with, but as far as affecting the program or how the program works, it’s the same. Again, it just gives [states] a little bit more flexibility and a little bit more information,” Boozman told The Hill.
“It’s all done and it’s intact. The savings are almost identical. So we’re pleased by the outcome,” he added.
It’s a welcome piece of news for Republicans who have watched the parliamentarian reject a variety of proposals in the bill for violating the Senate’s Byrd Rule, which governs what legislation is eligible to pass the Senate with a simple-majority vote on the budget reconciliation fast track.
MacDonough had dealt Republicans a setback by ruling that the section of the GOP megabill mandating that states cover a portion of SNAP benefits depending on their error rates in delivering assistance would violate the Byrd Rule.
Boozman told The Hill on Monday that the parliamentarian was primarily concerned that the legislation did not provide enough time and flexibility for states to adapt to the proposed changes.
“They were concerned that [states] wouldn’t have enough time with the data that they received in order to adjust for the payment errors. Our answer to that is to come up with a fix to provide them the data sooner,” he said. “That was the parliamentarian’s concern.”
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