by Andrew Trunsky
Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough rejected another Democratic effort to include immigration reform in President Joe Biden’s spending bill.
MacDonough’s ruling, which came late Thursday, is Democrats’ latest setback in their bid to overhaul the nation’s immigration system via the reconciliation bill. She rejected two bids earlier this year to include a pathway to citizenship in the package, ruling that the provisions did not meet the criteria to be included in the filibuster-proof legislation.
“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,” Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Majority Whip Dick Durbin and Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico and Alex Padilla of California said in a joint statement.
“The American people understand that fixing our broken immigration system is a moral and economic imperative,” they said.
The Congressional Budget Office in November concluded that had the ruling been adopted it would have established a pathway to citizenship for approximately 6.5 million people.
The parliamentarian’s ruling is just the latest setback the $1.75 trillion package which has faced heightened resistance from West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, forcing Schumer to punt the bill into next year.
It is also not the first time MacDonough has ruled against Democrats this year; in February, she blocked a $15 minimum wage from their coronavirus stimulus package, which was signed into law in March.
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Andrew Trunsky is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
I hesitate to write this, BUT I feel very strongly about what I will say next!
On Friday (Dec 17), Senator Blackburn cast a negative vote on Senate Roll Call Vote 508. It was about 1:30 p.m. Eastern Time when she did this. Then she apparently ‘lit out’ for home. I myself watched all of this on C-Span 2, and after the aforesaid vote no. 508 I did not see Blackburn again thereafter.
Twenty more votes would be held on Friday and into the early morning hours of Saturday (Dec 18). Blackburn did not vote on any of those Senate Roll Call Votes (nos. 509 thru 528). I presume this is true because she was not there to vote.
In admitting this, Blackburn may say that her vote would not have mattered. Maybe so. But she was elected, and is paid, to be on the floor of the U. S. Senate and vote! Hagerty was there. Charles Grassley from Iowa is 80-something years old–he was there and voting. One of Iowa’s colleges appeared in a bowl game on Friday, and I suppose that Grassley would have liked to attend the game, but he stayed on the job and voted.
Check out for yourself what I have just told you. Go to the U. S. Senate website and look under the appropriate task bar heading for the subheading for Votes. The information is there to be read by one and all.
There! I have said what I had to say! Needless to say, I do not like what Marsha did!