Since Congress began the complicated budget reconciliation process earlier this year, the Byrd Rule has remained a major obstacle with serious potential to sink Republican efforts.
However, what is the Byrd Rule and what does it mean for the future of President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’?
The Byrd Rule is a protocol unique to the U.S. Senate and is only applicable during the budget reconciliation process. Named after the late Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., there is no comparable rule that the House of Representatives is obliged to follow.
In order to bypass the usual 60-vote supermajority required to pass a bill through the Senate, Republicans can utilize the budget reconciliation process which allows them to vote a piece of fiscal legislation through the Senate with only 51 votes. Because Senate Republicans have a razor-thin majority in their chamber, securing a simple majority rather than a full 60 votes is much more feasible.
The Byrd Rule regulates the reconciliation process and requires all provisions of reconciliation bills to strictly pertain to fiscal matters. This includes tax, spending and debt limit issues.
The parliamentarian, the Senate’s nonpartisan referee, is responsible for determining that all sections of a reconciliation bill comply with this rule. If a clause is found to violate the Byrd rule, the bill will be sent back to be rewritten, as we saw happen last week.
The budget reconciliation process has been used successfully over 20 times since it was established in 1974. The most recent use was the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
Senate Majority Leader Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., must play a balancing act between meeting the differing, and sometimes contradicting, demands of his Republican colleagues while making sure to not include any provisions in the bill that are out of compliance with the Byrd Rule. If Thune cannot do this, Senate Republicans will have to seek out support from Democrats to pass Trump’s massive budget package, a highly unlikely prospect due to its extreme unpopularity among Democrats.
The Senate’s version of the budget reconciliation bill faces individual votes in several committees before it’s eligible for a vote on the floor. If passed, the legislation will go back over the House to ensure the two chambers’ versions are identical before it can reach the president’s desk to be signed into law.
