Another American Hero - Elizabeth MacDonough

Elizabeth McDonough, the Senate parliamentarian, is tasked with ensuring that the reconciliation bill complies with the “Byrd Rule,” which, among other things, excludes measures in which funding is “incidental” to a policy change.

The scope of the items she has rejected and the harm they could have caused if they stayed in the bill boggles the mind.  The partial list of rejected items demonstrates how radical and destructive the MAGA Republicans’ agenda actually is.

“Gone are GOP-led efforts to

• curb environmental regulations, 
• attempts to restrict federal judges' powers, 
• plans to bulk up immigration enforcement and 
• to cut funding from the federal agency launched to protect American consumers after the 2008 financial crisis,” USA Today reported. 

she sliced out a slew of critical Medicaid and Medicare provisions that may total $200B

• nixed measures throwing certain categories of immigrants off Medicaid and CHIP;
• reducing the federal match for states that expanded Medicaid; 
• barring gender-affirming care; 
• limiting increases in the provider tax (which would “severely limit states’ ability to provide health care to millions of Americans who depend upon Medicaid for their care”);
• and removing certain immigrants from Medicare and 
• credits/cost sharing in the Affordable Care Act exchanges.

“MacDonough determined that each item was in violation of a critical Senate rule that prohibits extraneous measures in bills like the one Trump wants on his desk for signature by July 4.”

• A provision selling off millions of acres of federal lands
• A provision to pass food aid costs on to states
• A proposed limitations on food aid benefits to certain citizens or lawful permanent residents
• Proposed restrictions on the ability of federal courts to issue nationwide injunctions and temporary restraining orders
• A proposal for a funding cap for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and for slashing pay of employees at the Federal Reserve
• A proposal to slash $293 million from the Treasury Department’s Office of Financial Research
• A plan to dissolve the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board
• An effort to repeal an EPA rule limiting air pollution emissions of passenger vehicles
• An item allowing project developers to bypass judicial environmental reviews if they pay a fee
• A measure deeming offshore oil and gas projects automatically compliant with the National Environmental Policy Act
• A modified version of the REINS Act, which would increase congressional power to overturn major regulations
• A scheme to punish so-called sanctuary cities by withholding federal grants
• An increase on Federal Employees Retirement System contribution rate for new civil servants who refuse to become at-will employees
• A measure seeking to extend the suspension of permanent price support authority for farmers
• A requirement forcing sale of all the electric vehicles used by the Post Office
• A change to annual geothermal lease sales and to geothermal royalties, June 24)
• A proposal for a mining road in Alaska
• Authorization for the executive branch to reorganize federal agencies
• New fee for federal worker unions’ use of agency resources
• Transfer of space shuttle to a nonprofit in Houston from the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum

And that is merely a partial list.

In an atmosphere of lawlessness and capitulation, when it is so easy to say “yes” to Trump’s whims, here is someone to stand up and say: “Rules aren’t optional. They matter. They ensure we are a government of laws, not of petulant autocrats.”