Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough (Image: Official portrait via senate.gov)
President Donald Trump has ignited a new feud against a figure that MS NOW called "the most powerful woman in Washington," and despite his efforts, he is largely powerless to do anything about her.
Elizabeth MacDonough has served as the Senate's Parliamentarian since 2012. Her position involves providing key interpretations of the Senate's standing rules and procedures, as well as determining what provisions can or cannot be included in budget reconciliation packages, which allow bills to pass with a simple majority, and without needing to meet the 60-vote filibuster threshold.
Throughout her time in the role, she has had a handful of notable rulings: she declined to allow the GOP-led Senate in 2017 to repeal an amendment that limits the political speech allowed by churches; in 2021, she ruled against the Democrat-led Senate from increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 in a COVID relief package; and later that same year, she ruled against the inclusion of new rules for a pathway to legal status for undocumented immigrants in a $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill.
Most recently, she ran afoul of Trump after ruling that $1 billion in security and construction funding for his White House ballroom could not be included in the Senate's long-in-the-works budget bill. This sent the president into a rage, calling for the GOP-led Senate to fire MacDonough in a post to Truth Social.
Writing about the situation on Tuesday, MS NOW's Hayes Brown said that it is not unprecedented for parliamentarians to be removed from their positions by the Senate after ruling counter to their desires.
"In 1987, Senate Democrats dismissed parliamentarian Robert Dove after winning control of the chamber," Brown detailed. "When Republicans retook the Senate in 1995, they reinstated Dove — only to dismiss him six years later after rulings that hurt Republican efforts to slash taxes."
This time, however, he argued that Trump's call to oust MacDonough will most likely go "unheeded." Trump himself also lacks the authority to remove her with Senate support.
"MacDonough will likely keep her job because she has remained popular overall with senators during her time in the role, despite having to deliver bad news to both sides," Brown added. "More importantly, [Senate Majority Leader John] Thune has stuck with her even as Trump has railed against her judgements. Without Thune’s backing, there’s no way for Trump to force MacDonough from her perch at the front of the Senate chamber. The Senate could also overrule her rulings rather than replacing her outright, but doing so would open the door to ending the filibuster altogether, something most GOP senators oppose."
