Senate Parliamentarian Rejects Eight More Parts of Big Beautiful Bill

The Senate parliamentarian on Sunday ruled eight more provisions of the Big Beautiful Bill cannot pass through the chamber without 60 votes.

Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough continues to scrutinize parts of the Big Beautiful Bill that may violate Senate rules on budgetary reconciliation, the procedure that Republicans are using to pass the Big Beautiful Bill through the Senate using only a simple majority.

The Senate parliamentarian decried that eight more provisions must be subject to 60 votes, which includes:

• State and local assistance to conduct border security and immigration enforcement
• Increasing the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) contribution rate for new civil servants if they do not agree to become “at-will” employees
• Imposing a $350 fee for federal employees to file a case with the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), which adjudicates appeals brought by federal civil servants to protect federal merit systems against partisan political and prohibited personnel practices
• Granting authority to agencies to rescind funds through an incentive program for federal employees to identify unnecessary funds and return it to the Treasury
• Requiring federal agency heads to charge federal employee unions a quartely fees for use of official time and agency resources by labor representatives
• Allows federal agencies to transfer, consolidate, or eliminate whole agencies or functions of agencies
• Mandating the sale of all United States Postal Service electric vehicles
• Changing agency rulemaking by prohibiting agencies from implementing, administering , or enforcing rules with budgetary effects

Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Jeff Merkley (D-OR) said in a statement:

There is no better way to define this Big Beautiful Betrayal of a bill than families lose, and billionaires win. Democrats are on the side of families and workers and are scrutinizing this bill piece by piece to ensure Republicans can’t use the reconciliation process to force their anti-worker policies on the American people. The Byrd Rule is enshrined in law for a reason, and Democrats are making sure it is enforced.

MacDonough also ruled on Saturday the Big Beautiful Bill cannot slash funding for sanctuary cities and cannot restrain federal courts’ ability to use preliminary injunctions.

The parliamentarian ruled the legislation cannot zero out funding to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CPFB).