OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Democrats have been pining to add what they hope will be millions of new citizens to their voter registration rolls by including a major amnesty provision in President Biden’s “Build Back Better” bill.
But they keep running into a little thing called “The Byrd Rule,” named after the late West Virginia Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd.
“At its core, the rule prohibits provisions that are viewed as ‘extraneous’ to the budget. The Byrd Rule, therefore, prevents a reconciliation bill from containing non-budgetary provisions that supporters might otherwise wish to have an easier path to passage,” says this definition.
Put another way, if a provision is going to add undue expense or cost to the broader legislation, the Byrd Rule can be invoked and would then need 60 votes (3/5) to override.
Democrats amnesty provision does that, according to Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, who “late Thursday rejected Democrats’ immigration amnesty provisions in President Biden’s multi-trillion Build Back Better Act, resulting in the party’s Capitol Hill leaders vowing to pursue other ways to provide legal protections for illegal immigrants,” Just the News reported.
“We strongly disagree with the Senate parliamentarian’s interpretation of our immigration proposal, and we will pursue every means to achieve a path to citizenship in the Build Back Better Act,” Senate Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York said in a statement on Thursday evening.
“Throughout the entire reconciliation process, we have worked to ensure that immigration reform was not treated as an afterthought. The majority of Americans support our efforts to provide legal status for millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States because it would raise wages, create good-paying jobs, enrich our economy, and improve the lives of all Americans,” he added.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., summarily pledged that she and fellow Democrats would move forward on offering a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
“The ruling by the Senate parliamentarian is highly disappointing,” she noted in a statement. “Achieving legal protections for undocumented immigrants in the Build Back Better Act has long been a key priority for congressional Democrats and for the American people – and we will continue to look at every possible option to do so.
“Immigrants make America more American: enriching our nation, powering our economy and bringing their patriotism, bravery and determination to succeed to our shores. The majority of the American people support Democrats’ work to fix our broken immigration system and provide legal status for undocumented immigrants,” Pelosi added.
“This guidance confirms, once again, what everyone already knew — that giving amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants isn’t a budgetary matter appropriate for reconciliation,” said Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. “The parliamentarian’s ruling is just an affirmation of the obvious.”
For now, however, all of this is moot: It appears as though the BBB legislation is dead in the water at least until the spring after Democrats in the 50-50 Senate failed to convince enough of their members to support it so that it could pass with Vice President Harris’ tie-breaking vote.
To that end, the chamber’s undeclared Socialist/Marxist senator, “Independent” Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, blasted colleagues Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona for opposing provisions of the massive $2 trillion package of social and climate spending.
“I respect other people’s points of view, but I do not respect the arrogance of any member of the senate who says, ‘You know what? I’m going to torpedo this entire bill, supported overwhelmingly by the American people…,” he told MSNBC host Chris Hayes.
“You’ve got two people saying, ‘You know what? Hey, if you don’t do it my way – I don’t care what the president wants, I don’t care what 48 of my colleagues want – it’s my way or the highway.’ And that, I regard as arrogance,” he said.
“’You have 48 people in the Democratic caucus who are prepared, and a president of the United States prepared to think big. And you have two Democrats who, in my view, are kind of acting like Republicans,’” he said.
He did not mention the two senators by name but it’s clear which two Democrat senators have been a roadblock to President Biden’s agenda.
