Senate Parliamentarian Nixes Slashing Funding for Sanctuary Cities, Restraining Court Injunctions in Big Beautiful Bill

The Senate Parliamentarian on Saturday ruled that the Big Beautiful Bill’s provisions limiting funding for sanctuary cities and restraining federal courts’ ability to issue preliminary injunctions cannot be included in Trump’s landmark legislation without a 60-vote majority.

Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled that there are many immigration-related policies that would require 60 votes to be included in the Big Beautiful Bill. This includes:

• Limiting grant funding for “sanctuary cities”
• Language granting state and local officials the authority to arrest non-citizens suspected of being in the United States unlawfully
• Reducing the ability of federal courts to issue preliminary injunctions or restraining orders against the federal government by requiring litigants to post a potentially enormous bond

However, MacDonough ruled that a provision would provide aid to states for internet and broadband deployment as long as the states do not regulate artificial intelligence (AI).

Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Jeff Merkley (D-OR) took the rulings as a victory, saying in a written statement on Saturday:

We continue to see Republicans’ blatant disregard for the rules of reconciliation when drafting this bill. Today, we were advised by the Senate Parliamentarian that several more provisions in this Big Beautiful Betrayal of a bill will be subject to the Byrd Rule – and Democrats plan to challenge every part of this bill that hurts working families and violates this process. Republicans’ relentless attack on middle class families in order to fund tax breaks for billionaires is a slap in the face to working families everywhere, and Democrats are fighting back.

The Senate Parliamentarian ruled earlier this week that Senate Republicans cannot zero out the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

Congressional Republicans are using budgetary reconciliation to pass the Big Beautiful Bill, a process that allows for some bills to pass through the Senate using a simple majority; however, it cannot change policy, as the process is meant to alter government spending or taxes.

The process by which the provisions in a reconciliation bill are scrutinized by the Senate is known as a “Byrd Bath,” referring to the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV), who came up with the rules of reconciliation to prevent this process from bypassing the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster threshold.