Senate Republicans are trying to salvage funding for a new White House ballroom following a parliamentary setback and growing reservations in their midst about the project ahead of the November midterm elections.
The Senate parliamentarian ruled over the weekend that $1 billion intended for Secret Service operations — which includes security funding for new construction at the White House East Wing — violated the chamber’s budget rules.
Republicans have vowed to rework the provision, a top priority for President Donald Trump, to ensure it can pass via a simple majority vote later this week. Meanwhile, Trump on Monday urged Senate Majority Leader John Thune to fire the parliamentarian.
Republican leaders are hoping to pass the legislation in both chambers of Congress by June 1. That will require a lengthy marathon session of votes this week in the Senate, with some likely to occur overnight, followed by a possible weekend session in the House.
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“The discussions with the parliamentarian [are] a back-and-forth. We, like on many issues, have multiple plans and contingencies for how she may or may not rule,” Thune told reporters on Monday. “It’s a give-and-take, and you take what she suggests or take her opinions and then try and come up with a different way of getting it done.”
Even if Republican leaders can get the ballroom language approved by the parliamentarian, it’s not clear whether it will have enough support to pass.
A handful of Republican senators have raised concerns about the project, including Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, John Curtis of Utah, Susan Collins of Maine and Rand Paul of Kentucky. Republicans can lose at most three votes on the party-line spending package, with Democrats lined up against it.
Tillis is threatening to oppose the entire reconciliation bill, which includes more than $70 billion for immigration enforcement, if it includes spending for the White House ballroom. The retiring senator has warned that the project would become fodder for Democratic campaign ads and hang like an albatross around his party’s neck ahead of the midterm elections later, where the economy will be a dominant issue.
“He is opposed if it includes ballroom money; he would be supportive if that gets stripped out,” Adam Webb, a spokesperson for Tillis, told NOTUS on Monday.
Murkowski questioned the planned timeline for passing the bill, calling the process rushed.
“We’re pushing ourselves into this June 1 deadline, not because it works for any of us here but because the president said so,” Murkowski complained to reporters.
Obtaining a new ruling from Elizabeth MacDonough, the parliamentarian, could take some time. Thune referenced last summer’s fight over the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and how one portion of it took five attempts to get the parliamentarian’s approval.
“We’re continuing to have conversations,” Thune continued. “That’s the calculus we have in front of us right now, and we’re trying to sort all that out and figure out how we can land the plane.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley indicated that it isn’t yet clear what will do the trick to get the Secret Service and ballroom green-lighted.
“They’re not going to tell us what we have to do. We have to show them something,” Grassley said.
Republicans could try to fix the provision several ways, including by making it more specific or by adding more limitations on how the funding can be used, according to Bobby Kogan, the senior director for federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress. Currently, the bill states that the funding can be used only for security-related purposes at the White House.
“These are procedural problems that are solvable but that are really going to limit the scope of the funding,” Kogan told NOTUS. “If the secret goal was to give them enough flexibility, that’s where they’re going to get in trouble.”
Of the $1 billion included in the bill for Secret Service operations through 2029, about $200 million is specifically provided for security needs relating to the East Wing project. Trump has repeatedly said the ballroom itself would be built with private donations, albeit with added security measures like bulletproof glass and “drone-proof” ceilings.
Democrats have vowed to fight against the ballroom funding in committee and on the Senate floor. The Senate Budget Committee is scheduled to mark up the bill on Wednesday, before sending it to the full chamber for a marathon session of votes on amendments known as a “vote-a-rama.”
“We’re going to force Republicans to answer a simple question: Who are you here to fight for? American families or Donald Trump’s priorities?” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a floor speech Monday. He said Democrats are ready to offer “amendment after amendment” to block it.
Republicans are also trying to get other portions of the initial proposal to pass muster with the Senate umpire. MacDonough on Friday ruled that four parts of the budget package on immigration enforcement could not be included. Those, however, are seen as more likely to eventually win Senate backing.
This story was updated to remove an inaccurate quote.
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