The obscure, unelected Senate official whose rulings can help - or kill
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The obscure, unelected Senate official whose rulings can help – or kill – a bill s chance to pass
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Growing Influence of the Senate Parliamentarian
The Senate uses a complex assortment [1] of standing rules, statutory rules, standing orders, and precedents to regulate its debates. Senators have used these procedural mechanisms differently over time. For example, the Senate presently relies primarily on statutory rules to regulate the budget process. And senators increasingly rely on precedents to regulate their debates when the rules are ambiguous
and when they are not. For example, senators may use the so-called nuclear option to create a precedent that is inconsistent with the Senate’s rules but nevertheless supersedes them.
Senators’ reliance on precedent to regulate their debates is evident in the growing influence of the Senate’s parliamentarian in recent decades. The Senate designated Charles L. Watkins as its first official parliamentarian on July 1, 1935. Prior to 1935, the Senate’s journal clerk provided “reliable and expert coaching [2]” to help senato