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Democrats may be forced to scale back their ambitions for a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package as one key senator, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, has said he won’t support trying to stretch the rules governing the budget process.
At issue is the so-called Byrd rule, named after Robert Byrd, a former senator also from West Virginia. The rule prohibits material from being in filibuster-proof bills that has a “merely incidental” budget effect, would raise the budget deficit after 10 years or affects Social Security.
“We’re not going to bust the filibuster, we’re not going to bust the Byrd rule that basically protects the filibuster,” Manchin said in an interview on CNN Tuesday night.
In an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Wednesday, Manchin said he had told Biden the same thing.
“I said, ‘Fine Mr. President. I’m happy to start this process but I’m not going to bust the Byrd rule, I’m not going to basically get rid of the filibuster. We are going to work in a bipartisan way,’” he said.
The House is expected to adopt the fiscal 2021 budget plan Wednesday that would set in motion the budget reconciliation process, which allows later spinoff bills to be immune to the filibuster in the Senate. Those bills, which would be subject to the Byrd rule, will be written by congressional committees by Feb. 16 to meet deficit targets in the budget resolution.
Passing a budget requires only 51 votes in the Senate and the follow-on reconciliation bills would also require only 51 votes, which Democrats would have with Vice President Kamala Harris vote. That makes the later reconciliation bill an attractive vehicle for Democrats to use to pass Biden’s $1.9 trillion plan.
But the Byrd rule’s restrictions will likely make some priorities, like a direct boost to the minimum wage, drop out, unless Democrats break a long-held norm and vote on the Senate floor to overrule the parliamentarian who arbitrates Byrd rule challenges.
Overruling the parliamentarian also only takes 51 votes, but if Manchin sticks to his position, Democrats would be one vote shy. Republicans won’t support waiving one of the ways to limit what Democrats can put into a reconciliation bill and have warned that overruling the parliamentarian would be seen as the same as getting rid of the filibuster,
The Senate is expected to adopt the budget on Thursday and the committees will have about two weeks to report back with the spinoff filibuster-proof legislation. While the White House has said it wants to take a bipartisan approach, the gulf between a first offer by a group of Senate Republican moderates – $618 billion – and Biden’s plan will be hard to bridge.
Manchin on Wednesday said Republicans will agree to more. “They’ll go farther than that. They know they have to,” he said.
And Manchin said he’s open to spending less.
“If it’s $1.9 trillion, so be it. If it’s a little smaller than that, if we find a targeted need, then that’s what we’re going to do,” he said.
