{"id":10453,"date":"2025-06-20T12:17:40","date_gmt":"2025-06-20T12:17:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-rand-paul-forces-gop-into-megabill-runaround\/"},"modified":"2025-06-20T12:17:40","modified_gmt":"2025-06-20T12:17:40","slug":"capitol-agenda-rand-paul-forces-gop-into-megabill-runaround","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-rand-paul-forces-gop-into-megabill-runaround\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitol agenda: Rand Paul forces GOP into megabill runaround"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Sen. Rand Paul is a frequent thorn in GOP leadership\u2019s side. But his recent break over border security funding in President Donald Trump\u2019s \u201cbig beautiful bill\u201d has top Republicans pushing the bounds of institutional norms to rein him in<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Senior Republicans have sidelined the Kentucky Republican, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, in their talks with the White House over policies under the panel\u2019s purview.<\/p>\n

Budget Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told Blue Light News he has taken over as the lead negotiator around how to shepherd through tens of billions of dollars for border wall construction and related infrastructure in the GOP megabill. Meanwhile, a Senate Republican aide said Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) \u2014 who heads the relevant Homeland Security subcommittee \u2014 will be the point person for negotiating the bill\u2019s government affairs provisions.<\/p>\n

With every other committee chair helping manage negotiations for their panels\u2019 portions of the massive tax and spending package, cutting Paul out is unprecedented. But Paul proposed funding border security at a fraction of what the administration requested and the House passed in its bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cSenator Paul usually votes \u2018no\u2019 and blames everybody else for not being pure enough,\u201d Graham told Blue Light News. \u201cAs chairman, you \u2026 don\u2019t have that luxury sometimes. You have to do things as chairman you wouldn\u2019t have to do as a rank-and-file member.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, few of Paul\u2019s own committee members appear willing to defend him. Paul lost an ally in Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), a fellow deficit hawk, after top White House adviser Stephen Miller briefed senators on the administration\u2019s border request and made a persuasive argument. Graham said the meeting was requested by him and Majority Leader John Thune to \u201ccontest\u201d Paul\u2019s offer. Paul did not attend.<\/p>\n

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said Paul\u2019s decision to draft his own proposal \u201cwithout any consultation of the committee\u201d was concerning, adding that he had \u201cnever seen that happen before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, Paul still believes some pieces of his own plan unrelated to border security will end up in the final bill, he told Blue Light News on Wednesday, and that he\u2019s involved in ongoing talks with the Senate parliamentarian.<\/p>\n

Speaking of the parliamentarian: Senate rule-keeper Elizabeth MacDonough is scrubbing the final draft of the megabill in a \u201cbig beautiful\u201d Byrd bath. Her rulings on which provisions will fly under the filibuster-skirting budget reconciliation process are expected to roll in through the middle of next week, when Thune wants to schedule the first procedural vote related to the package.<\/p>\n

Republicans are bracing for an answer to one consequential question they punted on earlier this year: whether they can use an accounting maneuver known as \u201ccurrent policy baseline\u201d to make it appear that extending Trump\u2019s 2017 tax cuts would cost nothing.<\/p>\n

Senate Finance Republicans and Democrats will make a joint presentation to MacDonough this weekend about which provisions to keep or scrap. And there\u2019s no shortage of GOP priorities under Byrd scrutiny \u2014 from tax cuts on certain gun silencers to a plan to raise taxes on foreign companies known as the \u201crevenge tax.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other outstanding issues before the parliamentarian: whether Commerce has to tweak language to prohibit states from regulating AI over the next decade; whether Judiciary can block judges\u2019 ability to issue preliminary injunctions; and whether Agriculture can use the megabill to pay for pieces of the stalled farm bill.<\/p>\n

What else we\u2019re watching:<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u2014 More megabill timeline hurdles: <\/b>The Senate majority leader is ramping up efforts to quell rebellions within his conference over the megabill as he works to get it to the floor next week. That includes talking to Trump, who he frequently refers to as his \u201ccloser,\u201d on a near-daily basis, Thune said. Meanwhile, Hawley is urging GOP leaders to strike Senate Finance\u2019s language that would largely reduce the provider tax to 3.5 percent from 6 percent, warning that it won\u2019t fly with House Republicans who voted to freeze, rather than reduce, the tax that many states use to fund their Medicaid programs.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Iran classified briefing: <\/b>Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has privately confirmed there will be an all-senators classified briefing on Iran early next week, a Schumer aide said. It comes as Trump says he\u2019ll decide within the next two weeks whether to strike the country<\/a> amid its escalating confrontation with Israel.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Trump pushes Senate\u2019s crypto bill:<\/b> Trump is urging House Republicans to send a \u201cclean\u201d version of the Senate-passed stablecoin regulatory framework<\/a> to his desk \u201cLIGHTNING FAST\u201d \u2014 dialing up the pressure on congressional Republicans as they mull changes to the bill, including potentially packaging it with broader digital-assets market structure legislation.<\/p>\n

Hailey Fuchs, Jordain Carney and Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sen. Rand Paul is a frequent thorn in GOP leadership\u2019s side. But his recent break over border security funding in President Donald Trump\u2019s \u201cbig beautiful bill\u201d has top Republicans pushing the bounds of institutional norms to rein him in. Senior Republicans have sidelined the Kentucky Republican, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10453\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}