House amends ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ to comply with Senate rules

The House of Representatives’ version of the Republican tax and spending package has been determined to be out of compliance with Senate rules, per a parliamentarian ruling.

Now, Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., is making changes to the bill through a rule vote Wednesday so that the Senate’s reconciliation timeline isn’t delayed.

The Senate parliamentarian’s ruling is crucial to the fate of Trump’s funding package.

In order for congressional Republicans to utilize the Senate’s ability to override the filibuster, the House’s version of the bill must also comply with the unique, slightly differing rules of the Senate. Without overriding the filibuster, Republicans would have to rely on Democratic votes to pass the legislation through the Senate. 

The provisions of the bill, which the Senate parliamentarian, the chief, non-partisan interpreter of the chamber’s rules, took issue with including cuts to Pentagon spending and the pandemic-era employee retention tax credit.

The House will vote on the measure Wednesday afternoon.

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., an ardent opposer of his party’s bill, called Johnson’s use of a procedural vote to amend the budget package “sneaky” on social media.

House Rules Committee Ranking Member Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., is urging his Democrat colleagues to use the rule vote to tank the Republican’s bill.

“If you have ‘sounded the alarm’ about this bill and vote yes on today’s rule, you’re complicit in what you are claiming to oppose,” McGovern told his colleagues in a letter Wednesday. 

McGovern also linked Johnson’s use of late-night budget reconciliation markups to the Senate parliamentarian’s ruling.

“When Republicans rushed to finalize their awful bill in the middle of the night, they accidentally included some provisions that aren’t allowed to be in the bill under the Senate’s rules for budget reconciliation,” McGovern said.

Republicans are rushing to meet their self-imposed deadline to finalize the bill before July 4. Some Republicans, however, are indicating that this deadline may no longer be feasible.

Commerce chair Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, suggested that while the budget bill might clear the Senate chamber by Independence Day, negotiations with the House are likely to take longer. Cruz thinks it will take another month for the chambers to negotiate their two versions of the bill.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., echoed Cruz’s thoughts on the July 4 deadline, saying that “it won’t happen.”