Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rand Paul (R-Ky.), whose committee will mark up a portion of the Senate budget reconciliation bill to fund immigration enforcement operations, says there’s a good chance that the $1 billion in funding for the White House ballroom will be removed from the bill before it reaches the Senate floor.
Paul, who opposes spending taxpayer dollars on the ballroom, said the $1 billion provided to the Secret Service to provide security enhancements to the White House ballroom faces several major hurdles to remaining in the bill text.
The $1 billion for the ballroom was included in the portion of legislative text released last week by the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Judiciary panel’s bill will be combined with text drafted by Paul’s Homeland Security Committee to produce the budget reconciliation package that will come to the Senate floor next week.
“I’m for still doing it with the private donations,” Paul said of how to pay for the White House ballroom and security enhancements associated with the project.
He said there are “a lot of questions” whether the $1 billion ballroom provision will survive procedural objections.
“I think there’s a lot of questions. I think it will have to go through the Byrd Bath and they’ll have to decide whether it can be in reconciliation,” he said, referring to the Senate rule governing what can be added to a budget reconciliation package to circumvent a Democratic filibuster.
But Paul said that even if the Senate parliamentarian approves of the funding for security enhancements to the ballroom, it could still get stripped out at the committee level.
“If it were in reconciliation, there’s all these technical things but I think it has to go to the committee of jurisdiction and I think the committee of jurisdiction is not my committee,” he said.
“I don’t think it will be in there, is what my guess is,” he added.
Paul has introduced a bill to set up an expedited process to approve the White House ballroom and future projects by future presidents without providing any funding.
“I’m for funding it with private funds,” he added.
Paul said his committee will mark up the budget reconciliation package’s legislative text next week and it appears the Homeland Security Committee will be the only panel to do so.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on Monday postponed a mark-up of the reconciliation bill that had been scheduled for Tuesday, March 12.
The Judiciary panel said it would let the Homeland Security Committee take the lead because the Homeland Security panel does not have a committee rule that allows the minority party to hold over business for a week.
“The decision to postpone tomorrow’s Judiciary markup on the targeted reconciliation bill was made following discussions between the Judiciary and HSGAC committees and Senate leadership,” Senate Judiciary Republicans announced in a post on X.
“HSGAC has announced plans to hold a markup. Since only one committee is required to mark up the reconciliation bill and HSGAC’s committee rules don’t require two meetings to mark up a bill, whereas Judiciary’s do, the preference at this time is for HSGAC to move forward with its markup,” they said.
The decision to skip the mark-up in the Judiciary Committee may have been driven by concern that Grassley lacks the votes to report the legislation to the Senate floor.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N. C.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, told reporters Monday that he needs “a lot of questions” answered before he approves $1 billion in taxpayer funding for the ballroom.
“I got a lot of questions that got to be answered,” he said. “I’m going to ask basic questions on it. We’re supposed to get briefed this week.”
Tillis said funding the White House ballroom with taxpayer money could be a dumb political move in an election year when voters are concerned about the rising costs for food and fuel.
“If I’m in the Democratic marketing department, I’m probably thinking of a lot of ways I would use this on targeted senators that vote for it,” he warned. “We certainly shouldn’t expect any members who are in any of these at-risk states to [vote for] it if they see the potential consequences.”
Tillis said there was also a question of whether Sen. Ashley Moody (R-Fla.) would be able to attend the Judiciary panel’s mark-up.
Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.