An effort by New Mexico’s Senior U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich and a handful of other Senate Democrats have made it significantly harder for Republicans to include their proposed $1 billion appropriation for President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom in an upcoming budget reconciliation bil, according to a Sunday press release from Heinrich’s office.
This story was originally published at New Mexico Political Report, a nonprofit news service covering politics and policy in the Land of Enchantment. Learn more and support our work at nmreports.org
Heinrich, along with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, and ranking Democrats in key committees impacted by the budget bill, challenged a Republican effort to include ballroom funding in a Republican budget bill using special rules requiring a simple 50-vote majority instead of the normal 60-votes subject to filibuster. “In this case, the Parliamentarian advised that Republicans’ proposal to spend taxpayer dollars on Trump’s ballroom would be subject to a Byrd Rule challenge, meaning Democrats can force a vote requiring 60 senators to keep the provision in the bill — a threshold Republicans are unlikely to meet,” the group said in the release.
In a joint statement, the lawmakers said, “Throwing a billion taxpayer dollars at Trump’s gold-plated ballroom is the last thing Congress should be doing while hardworking Americans are getting crushed at the gas pump, at the grocery store, and by higher housing, health care, and home energy costs.” The Democratic senators criticized the GOP for prioritizing the project alongside tens of billions of dollars for ICE and Border Patrol without enforcing accountability, noting that the bill provides zero cost relief to American families.
Heinrich and Schumer were joined by Senators Jeff Merkley, Dick Durbin, Gary Peters and Sheldon Whitehouse.