On a typical day, her work goes unnoticed.  During the February impeachment trial, however, her profile was heightened as she handed Senate President pro tem Patrick Leahy slips of paper with precise wording on them relating to obscure rules of the Senate.

But Elizabeth MacDonough, the Senate Parliamentarian, will make one of the most important rulings of her tenure when she determines if the Democrats’ proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour falls within the scope of budget reconciliation process.

With an undergraduate degree in English literature from George Washington University, MacDonough is a veteran of Capitol Hill.  She started in Washington as the assistant librarian of the Senate in 1990, taking some time off to get her law degree from the University of Vermont before returning and rising through the ranks to take over as Senate Parliamentarian in 2012, appointed by then-Majority Leader Democrat Harry Reid.  She’s so respected, Mitch McConnell kept her in the position when Republicans took the Senate in 2015. 

As her predecessor as Parliamentarian notes, it’s a thankless position.  “Elizabeth has a soul-crushing job, to which she brings an enormous amount of soul,” Alan Frumin told the Associated Press, noting that the Parliamentarian is frequently lobbied–sometimes aggressively–by members of both sides when a vital decision of rules of order can mean a proposal lives or dies.

Acting as a non-partisan arbiter, MacDonough looks at the rules passed by the Senate each term to determine how they match the unchangeable foundational laws that govern the body.  During debates about the Affordable Care Act since it passed, MacDonough has repeatedly ruled against Republican attempts to insert abortion restrictions into bills to repeal or change the law, saying that they violated the rules of the Senate.

Her rulings, though, are not written in stone:  Senators can overrule her judgements with a vote of 60 members, which has happened twice in her term–once by Democrats and once by Republicans–both cases relating to changing the rules about filibustering judicial and executive branch appointments.