'The Senate has discovered water': How the parliamentarian could reshape the Biden agenda

A crucial decision this week by the Senate's parliamentarian could have sweeping ramifications for Joe Biden and future presidents to ram their agendas through the chamber along straight party-lines, putting Democrats on the cusp of pushing the rules further than they've gone before.

After top Democratic aides privately strategized on a novel plan for weeks, the parliamentarian suggested on Monday that the Senate could potentially take an unprecedented step to use a process known as budget reconciliation twice every fiscal year, possibly giving Democrats a chance to move a total of six pieces of legislation with just 51 votes before the end of this Congress, according to officials in both parties and experts of Senate rules. Doing so would effectively circumvent Republicans and a filibuster, which requires 60 votes to overcome, but any package must have a budgetary impact in order to comply with the Senate rules. It's still uncertain if Democrats will be able go to that far given that the parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, has not issued a final ruling on the matter. Senate Democrats, who will begin discussions next week about their strategy, will have to also decide if they have the appetite to ignore the outcries of the GOP and stay completely unified to advance the agenda of a President who campaigned on a promise to work with Republicans. And already, Democrats including Sen. Joe Manchin are balking at the go-it-alone demands of many in his party.