By Douglas V. Gibbs
In the latest drama about the Big Beautiful Bill, which made its way out of the Senate with an approval thanks to Vice President Vance casting the deciding vote and now is before the delegation of representatives in the House, the Senate Parliamentarian made the news, but nobody talked about the situation like you are getting ready to experience with me. The mainstream media, the elitist establishment folks of both parties in D.C., nor even some of the members of the so-called “conservative” commentators understand the problem, but it is something that needs to be said loud and clear for Americans to understand regarding how the authoritarians of The Left play their games. Some of their antics are on the surface, others hide in the shadows but have been exposed as being a part of The Swamp or The Deep State. But what about the ones that hide in plain sight, and are fully accepted because we don’t realized that they exist? I am talking about the Senate Parliamentarian, and what has happened over that last ninety years is that the position has become a sort-of backroom dictator of American policy—and it’s time to stop pretending otherwise.
I am willing to bet that most of you had never even heard of the obscure office until it made the news during the recent battle in the Senate over the Big Beautiful Bill. That person is unelected, unaccountable, and unknown to most Americans. But, let’s be clear, that position was not established by the Founding Fathers. It didn’t exist during Washington, Jefferson, Madison, or even John Tyler or Calvin Coolidge. No, the position was quietly created in 1935, right in the thick of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal steamroller, when he was dealing with a fracturing Democrat Party that was chewing itself apart.
FDR had a massive Senate supermajority in 1935. On paper, he had the power to pass whatever he wanted. But he didn’t. Why? Because his own party was splintered into three factions: the far-left progressives, the entrenched Southern Democrats, and the belt-tightening conservative Democrats who didn’t want to hand the federal government a blank check of centralized power.
In the middle of that infighting, with his agenda at risk from within his own party, the office of the Senate Parliamentarian magically appeared. Advertised as being an “advisor” to the presiding officer, just someone to “help with rules.” That’s Swamp Code for putting an insider in place to protect the boss’s agenda—in this case, FDR’s New Deal socialism.
In short, the Senate Parliamentarian was designed to be a Tool of Power, not someone concerned with the consent of the governed or the United States Constitution.
Which brings us to our modern world of politics which includes, without folks realizing it, an evolved Senate Parliamentarian that has had ninety years to develop into a leviathan hidden in a small office not noticed and even highly respected by those who infest Capitol Hill. Understand, there have only been five Senate Parliamentarians in American history. That’s it. Five people, across nearly a century, who’ve quietly held enormous power without a single vote cast by the American people, without any of the checks and balances in place thanks to the United States Constitution reaching into that office, and without an appointment and confirmation process as is constitutionally required for officers in the executive branch.
The current Parliamentarian is being trusted, listened to, and blindly obeyed; despite being a hard-left swamp monster. Elizabeth MacDonough, an Obama-era holdover, during the Senate showdown, decided that President Donald J. Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill couldn’t go through reconciliation, which would eliminate cloture and only require a simple majority. Why? Because she said so.
This woman—who you didn’t elect, I didn’t elect, nobody elected or appointed and confirmed, tried to kneecap Donald Trump’s agenda, an agenda mind you voted into place by both the Electoral College and the Popular Vote, with a stroke of her pen. One unelected bureaucrat just told you: “Nope. Your vote for Trump doesn’t matter. Sit down. Shut up.”
And how did John Thune and the spineless Republicans handle the situation?
The GOP Senators should have been outraged! Instead, we got silence, maneuvering, positioning, and a political hope they could pull it off after her devastating regal decree. No action. No fire. No defense of the voters who swept Trump into office to drain the swamp and bulldoze the bureaucracy.
Isn’t that something? While marching on the streets calling President Trump a king, the Democrats and their leftist allies use a monarch-style dictatorial move in the Senate to try to undermine the agenda of a sitting President of the United States and his allies in the legislature.
Thune and the GOP leadership seemed like they were content to let this glorified referee on steroids dictate the legislative game. Can you imagine if the NFL let one referee call off touchdowns for political reasons? You’d have riots in the streets. But when it’s the U.S. Senate? Crickets.
If the Republicans in the Senate truly had any guts for the fight, the kind of moxie that Trump has shown us over and over again, they would not allow the Parliamentarian to stand in their way – they would wield their power as members of the Senate and go around her, or even THROUGH the Parliamentarian.
Enough is Enough.
The Senate has three options here – historical and legal avenues to take, if they had the courage:
- IGNORE the Parliamentarian. The presiding officer (that’s the President Pro-Tempore, or Vice President or whoever is in the chair) can reject her opinion. Done. Over. Move on.
- REPLACE her. That’s what Republicans did in 2001 when Robert Dove got in the way of tax cuts. Don’t like the ruling? Get a new umpire. It’s legal. It’s precedent.
- ELIMINATE the position. This position is nowhere in the Constitution. James Madison never envisioned an unelected “rules czar” telling either House of Congress what they can legislate. It’s a modern invention—and a dangerous one.
If the Founders didn’t create the position because they didn’t need the Parliamentarian—Why Do We?
Let me leave you with this: the Founding Fathers trusted the system they created, the checks and balances, We the People in the House of Representatives and the States who appointed the Senators, not a backroom bureaucrat put in place to make sure tyranny has a fist hidden among the cogs of the machine. The Senate has its own rules. Let senators enforce them. Let voters hold them accountable. That’s how our republic works.
Fortunately, in the end the bill got out of the Senate – damaged along the way with bad amendments and losses; the latter due partly to the Parliamentarian, but not because John Thune and every Republican who claims to love the Constitution stood up, spoke out, and took the gavel back from the Parliamentarian. The bill made it out of the Senate despite their gutlessness, not because of it. It’s time to recognize the tyranny hiding in plain sight. It’s time to replace or vote out the Parliamentarian in the Senate. Anything less will allow the swamp to continue to bubble, and the deep state to continue to grab the reins when it wants to. If we really want to drain the swamp, canning the Senate Parliamentarian would be a fantastic move to make.
Unfortunately, I don’t know if the Republicans in the Senate have the backbone to work with Trump as they should. They need to either get to work with the intestinal fortitude required to get the job done, or get out of the way.
I hope We the People is paying attention, but I fear that they may have missed this one about the Senate Parliamentarian. I hope to God I am wrong about their attention span.
— Political Pistachio Constitutional News and Commentary
