Washington – The Senate Republicans move forward with a simple majority vote as early as Wednesday evening to defeat an electric vehicle mandate in California, which, according to the Democrats and the non -partisan government’s responsibility office, should be subject to the rule of voting objects at 60 vote.
This decision transforms a policy of battle on clean energy into a confrontation with high issues on the fate of the filibusier, with consequences for the future of the Senate.
The vote would bypass the 60 vote rule, which can be done in limited circumstances. Democrats warn that if the Republicans go in defiance of the Senate parliamentarian, who has taken the side of the Gao in the dispute, they would put a precedent for nucusing the legislative filibuster and transform the Senate into an organism predominantly voted.
“It becomes nuclear, clear and simple. He invades the parliamentarian,” the head of the Senate’s minority, Chuck Schumer, Dn.y. told journalists on Tuesday.
In a warning to the Republicans, Schumer said that when the Democrats are in charge then, “what is happening.”
The unusual confrontation carries tensions within both parties. The Democrats campaigned in 2024 for abandoning the filibusier to adopt major bills if they won, while the Senate Republicans promised to protect the 60 vote rule, even after capturing the White House and control of the Congress last fall.
The head of the majority of the Senate, John Thune, RS.D., insisted that he did not try to end the obstruction and that this decision applies only to a narrow and particular case. He argued that the parliamentarian is wrong to rely on this issue, affirming that by virtue of the Congress Review Act, this The resolution is subject to a simple majority threshold to repeal the regulations.
“Democrats are trying to derail a repeal by making a crisis of anger on an supposed procedure problem, derogations from California are not rules that Democrats affirm, and therefore the Congress Revision Act cannot be used to repeal them,” said Thune, referring to the Biden administration’s decision to allow California to question the rules in question. “I think that we must act to guarantee that this intrusion into the process of the Congress Examination does not become a habit and that the Senate does not end up transferring its decision -making power to the arc resolutions to the government’s office of responsibility.”
Thune said that the question “does not consist in destroying the Senate procedure or any other hysterical assertion that Democrats make.”
As the Republicans have warned the Democrats in the past, breaking the previous one in the Senate has a way to return to the starting party.
Democrats say that ignore the internal referee in this case will open the door to future majorities to do the same on other questions.
In a new service note to colleagues, Senator Alex Padilla, D-Calif., Argues that the decision would be “the first time in the history of the Senate that a majority canceled the parliamentarian to adopt a bill by a majority vote, bypassing an obligatory”.
Voting places the Republican senators on the spot, because many of them promised not only to protect the filibusier but to respect the decisions of the parliamentarian.
“If something is directly presented to the parliamentarian through a parliamentary investigation, she responds in a way and then you have an effort to win on, it’s a concern, right?” Senator Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, told NBC News, noting that she supports the loss of the EV mandate in California but does not support prevailing the parliamentarian.
Senator Susan Collins, R-Maine, said that she was planning to support the resolution to undo the mandate of the electric vehicle, despite her history of obstacle support.
Senator John Curtis, Rutah, said that he would oppose any effort to cancel the parliamentarian in the budget reconciliation package. But he said he agreed with the decision to achieve California’s mandate.
“I went through it a lot, I spent a lot of time on it,” said Curtis. “Count me in the camp which was very thoughtful to make sure that what we do does not establish a precedent of which we are not satisfied.”
If the Republican leaders structure the process so that the members vote against the Gao decision without going directly after the parliamentarian, the Democrats call it as a distinction without difference.
“It’s a nonsense,” said senator Adam Schiff, D-Calif. “There have been dozens of times when the Republicans have obtained opinions from Gao. It’s just their way of trying to take a favorable tour about the breakdown of their word. Chief Thune in his inaugural speech while the majority leader said that he did not overthrow the parliamentarian.
When asked if she worried the vote would open the door to the Democrats to try to eliminate the filibusier, senator Shelley Moore Capito, RW.VA., said: “Well, they have already tried this.”
When the Democrats had full control in 2021 and 2022, they tried to unravel the legislative filibuster to adopt a federal law on voting rights – but were hampered by the internal opposition. They also faced the pressure of the liberals to ignore the parliamentarian to increase the minimum wage in their bill on the parties line, but they refused for fear of the previous one that it was going to fix.
Now, some Democrats say that the GOP’s decision would strengthen their case to break the filibustier in the future.
“The silver lining here is that the Republicans would cancel the parliamentarian by the majority vote, which is one more step to blur the legislative fiviful”, Adam Jentleson, a former longtime democratic assistant who wrote a book criticizing the filibuste. “Democrats will not like the political result here, but they can do nothing to stop it, so they could also pocket the procedural marker and use it when they are back to power to pass their program on the votes of the majority.”
