DJT Day 109 - Byrd Bath, anyone?

All of a sudden, we all are going to have to become super nerds. A woman named Elizabeth McDonough, the Parliamentarian of the United States Senate, has become one of the most important and influential persons in the nation and may not be sleeping very well at night. Within the next few weeks, Elizabeth will either be the heroine or villain of millions of Americans.

She will become the de facto arbiter of the scope and application of the Byrd Rule and will be deciding whether key provisions of the American Health Care Act (AHCA) passed in the House have more or less than "a merely incidental impact on budgetary outlays or revenues". If she says "more than merely incidental" as to any particular provision, it can stay in a bill that can be passed by a simple majority vote in the Senate under the reconciliation process. If instead, Elizabeth says that same provision is "merely incidental" or "less than merely incidental", it has to either come out of the bill or, if it stays in, a filibuster can kill the bill if it has the support of fewer than 60 Senators. Just as a reminder, there are only 52 Republican Senators and no Democratic Senator in his or her right mind will ever vote for the AHCA.

So, even such staunch Republicans as Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn are already wondering if certain critical provisions can survive the Byrd Rule -- provisions such as those allowing the State waiver of essential health benefits or dumping folks with pre-existing conditions into high risk pools or permitting insurance companies to surcharge senior citizens for health care (e.g., up to five times more than younger people). Stripping the offending provisions out of a bill to avoid the threat of a filibuster is a process affectionately known as a "Byrd Bath". The visual image of middle-aged and older pale white Republican men with their floppy underarms and bellies splashing around in their saggy swimwear in an algae-filled bird bath is just too delightfully humorous for words to describe.

I think we are about to find out how secure Elizabeth McDonough is in her job. Senate parliamentarians have been fired before if their Byrd Rule decisions resulted in obstacles to their bosses' agenda. Better yet, if Trump will lambast a solitary United States District Judge or fire a sitting albeit acting United States Attorney General, can you imagine how unwound he will be when he learns that the President of the United States cannot tell Elizabeth McDonough "You're Fired".