House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington says Republicans shouldn’t give up on advancing certain priorities that were cut out of their “big, beautiful bill” for not complying with Senate rules, telling reporters Tuesday that lawmakers will try again in follow-up budget reconciliation packages.
“There may be a longer list of things that were kicked out by the Senate parliamentarian as noncompliant with the Byrd rule — I think we should make another run at that and look for ways to structure the provisions so that it’s more fundamentally budgetary in impact and policy,” the Texas Republican said during the press call Tuesday afternoon. “I suspect that’s why they were kicked out.”
The so-called Byrd rule limits what provisions can be included in a bill moving through Congress through the reconciliation process, which allows lawmakers to skirt the 60-vote filibuster threshold in the Senate.
Arrington pointed to one provision stripped in the Senate from the House-passed megabill that would have prohibited Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming surgeries, and another that would have banned noncitizens from tapping into Medicaid resources.
