The Senate parliamentarian has ruled against a controversial provision in the Senate Republicans’ megabill that would have made it significantly more difficult for courts to enforce contempt findings against the Trump administration.
The parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, ruled that limiting courts’ ability to hold Trump officials in contempt violated the Senate’s rules governing what can be passed with a simple-majority vote on the budget reconciliation fast track.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) hailed the parliamentarian’s decision as a major victory.
“Senate Republicans tried to write Donald Trump’s contempt for the courts into law — gutting judicial enforcement, defying the Constitution and bulldozing the very rule of law that forms our democracy,” Schumer said in a statement responding to the development.
