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To be clear, the parliamentarian is only an advisory role, they don't get to rule or decide anything, only offer guidance which senators then choose to listen to. But they could ignore it (and have done so in the past) or can fire the parliamentarian and pick a new one which is more likely to advise in the way that they want (and have done so in the past.)

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It's not the senate generally that is taking the parlimentarian's advice in this case, but the presiding officer, who does get to unilaterally decide (although the have some options).

See 2 USC 641(d) for it being out of order and Senate rule XX for how those are decided (which is surprisingly flexible, as you hit). Or for a more readable source: https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/introduction-to...

But the fact that we're even discussing this shows that the article is pretty reasonable in calling this arcane.

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