The Republican bid to provide $1 billion for President Trump’s White House ballroom project in a filibuster-proof budget bill hit a major roadblock on Saturday when the Senate’s top parliamentary judge ruled that the money did not qualify for inclusion in the measure.
In an opinion announced by Senate Democrats, Elizabeth MacDonough, the nonpartisan lawmaker, ruled that the proposed $1 billion in security improvements for the ongoing White House project violated budget voting rules.
The ruling from Ms. MacDonough, the judge of complex Senate rules, meant that the proposal had to be adjusted or be subject to a threshold of 60 votes. That would effectively kill the funding, as Democrats are uniformly opposed.
Democrats argued that the White House project went far beyond the reach of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which included the money in its portion of the legislation. That sent Republicans back to the drawing board to figure out how to save funding, which was already threatening to become a political problem for the GOP
“While we expect Republicans to amend this bill to appease Trump, Democrats are prepared to challenge any changes to this bill,” Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, the senior Democrat on the Budget Committee, said in a statement. “We cannot allow Republicans to waste our national treasure on a mission of chaos and corruption while turning a blind eye to the needs of the American people.”
The decision was a setback for the White House, which is seeking money to help fund a pet project of the president as well as to demonstrate in a lawsuit that Congress has given it its blessing.
Still, some Republicans were likely relieved by the decision, as it could spare them a politically difficult vote in support of a project that polls show is unpopular. Its fate in the narrowly divided house was already uncertain.
Republicans had previously announced that they were in the process of revising controversial provisions.
“Technical adjustments are a standard part of the budget vote process,” read a statement from Judiciary Committee Republicans posted on social media Friday. “Reviews and talks with the parliamentarian are ongoing.”
Democrats have aggressively attacked the spending, saying it underscores Republican and Mr. Trump’s skewed priorities to spend lavishly on a White House ballroom as gas prices and other consumer costs rise, with little relief from Washington. Even if the money is knocked out of the legislation, Democrats plan to have Republicans vote repeatedly on proposals tied to the ballroom spending.
“Republicans tried to make taxpayers foot the bill for Trump’s billion-dollar ballroom,” Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic minority leader, said in a statement. “Senate Democrats hit back — blowing up their first attempt.”
Senate Republican leaders have consistently defended the money, saying it was sought by the Secret Service to ensure the safety of the president, his family and other top officials and visitors to the White House.
Sean Curran, the head of the Secret Service, was on Capitol Hill last week to brief Republican senators. The Secret Service also distributed a breakdown showing that only $220 million of the $1 billion would be spent directly on the White House project, with the rest going to a variety of other security projects and programs.
Republicans in the House and Senate began pushing the $72 billion measure to fund Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown throughout the rest of the president’s term after Democrats refused to support money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection unless the White House agreed to new restrictions on federal officials.
The dispute followed the killing of two US citizens by immigration officers in Minnesota earlier this year and led to a nearly 80-day funding cutoff for the Homeland Security Department as negotiations proved unsuccessful.
Republicans said the opposition and disruption at the agency left them no choice but to go outside normal spending channels to free up the money for the immigration push, although the addition of the money to the White House project came as something of a surprise.
On Thursday, the parliamentarian ruled that some other key elements of proposed funding for the Department of Homeland Security did not meet budget rules for primarily technical reasons. Republicans also revised those provisions to try to keep them in the legislation.
