Congress
3 policy heavyweights endangered by redistricting
Members of both parties have yet to reckon with one inevitable consequence of the redistricting fight that’s rippling across the country — the loss of years of policy expertise on Capitol Hill.
While many of the lawmakers at risk of losing their seats in the redistricting wars have only a few years under their belt, several senior lawmakers who have spent decades building their legislative portfolios and climbing the ranks of the most powerful House committees are also now seeing their political futures threatened.
They include Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.), who aims to be the next chair of the Armed Services Committee, and Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), an appropriations “cardinal” who oversees funds for the military and defense agencies.
And then there’s Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), a vocal progressive and the second-most senior Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, who is choosing to retire rather than compete against his younger colleague, rising progressive star Greg Casar.
The departure of any one of these members would go beyond simply scrambling party ratios and potentially determining the House majority in the 2026 midterms; their displacement would impact the ideological makeups of their respective committees and leave gaping knowledge voids.
Here’s how a House without Doggett, Calvert and Wittman could change how Congress approaches taxation, health, defense and national security.
A progressive policy voice
Doggett has spent 50 years in politics and three decades in the House. As the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health, the Austin-area lawmaker is known for his attacks on corporate influence over politics and the machinations of Big Pharma, and worked to end lower tax rates for American companies that offshore their profits.
And as the second-most-senior Democrat on the committee, Doggett also has a reputation for representing the interests of progressives on a panel stacked with moderates. He has over the years been one of the only Democratic tax writers willing to privately challenge Ways and Means ranking member Richard Neal (D-Mass.), who has been criticized at times for being too close to special interests.
“He’s been sort of a lone voice fighting against Big Pharma, against [pharmacy benefit managers], against Medicare Advantage, against price-gouging,” said fellow committee member Don Beyer (D-Va.) in an interview. “He’s never hesitated to disagree with Richie, too … Lloyd doesn’t just roll over.”
Doggett, in an interview, recalled efforts to amend drug pricing legislation authored by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi during a 2019 committee markup, ignoring instructions from leadership not to do so.
“I offered amendments that were opposed and defeated by Chairman Neal … to extend coverage to the uninsured,” said Doggett. “The committee’s position was that it had to be done just the way Pelosi submitted it.”
Asked for comment, a Neal spokesperson referred to the lawmaker’s statement at the time of Doggett’s retirement, which recognized the Texan as “a bulldog in the fight for the little guy.”
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the former chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, recalled in an interview that Doggett helped keep the Democrats’ signature party-line legislation of 2022 from straying too far to the middle.
“Lloyd was our leader on Ways and Means, definitely around billionaire taxes and stock buybacks,” she said. “He’s willing to stand up to party leadership, which is often necessary on that committee and, in general, on some of these tax issues.”
A defense appropriations guru
California’s redistricting plans have set the stage for a contentious primary fight between GOP Reps. Ken Calvert and Young Kim. It has many Republicans openly fretting about the implications of losing Calvert, who has spent two-and-a-half decades working on defense policy on Capitol Hill.
A fellow California Republican, Rep. Darrell Issa, was caught on hot mic in early Decembersaying Kim should step aside and consider a position in the administration because “with Ken, we need him exactly where he is.”
Another defense appropriator, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), said in a recent interview that “for the national security of the United States, it’s hard to find somebody who is more important than Ken Calvert. … He knows defense, the intricacies, the details like nobody — like nobody.”
Calvert’s expertise is so revered he obtained a waiver from House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) to serve beyond his term limit as the head of the Defense subcommittee in the current Congress; he’s not likely to get a waiver for the next one.
Still, colleagues say Calvert is regarded as an institutional encyclopedia on defense spending matters, regularly citing data points from his vast knowledge of military history, the history of weapons systems, various bureaucracies within the defense sphere and the strategies of rival world powers.
Calvert has also taken the lead on infusing new money into defense programs focused on innovative weapons and logistics systems, launching a $100 million dollar initiative in 2022 to speed up the production and acquisition of cutting-edge military technology.
“He’s got institutional knowledge that is very rare. There’s only a few members who have that much time in the House,” said Defense subcommittee vice chair Jake Ellzey (R-Texas) in an interview. “And that institutional knowledge is irreplaceable, unless you get somebody who’s been working it that long, and there’s nobody that even comes close.”
Calvert, in a statement, called himself “uniquely qualified to work with the Trump Administration” as “a senior member of the Appropriations Committee and having worked in this space for many years.”
An advocate for Virginia’s defense community
Wittman, who was first elected in 2007, has long been eyeing the opportunity to ascend to the top GOP position on the House Armed Services Committee once the current chair, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), completes his three-term tenure at the end of 2026. The Virginia Republican has held leadership roles across multiple subcommittees and now presides over the Tactical Air & Land Forces subpanel.
“[He is] very knowledgeable, carries himself very well, very well respected,” said Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.), a member of Wittman’s subcommittee, in an interview.
But Wittman’s seat has been a top target of Democrats’ mid-decade redistricting plans, which could result in making the 1st Congressional District much bluer.
Wittman has been a fierce advocate of his state’s shipbuilding industry — which is responsible for producing aircraft carriers and a fleet of nuclear-attack submarines — and sees the equipment as critical to the U.S. military’s readiness for potential conflict with China in the Pacific.
One House GOP aide who works on national security issues, granted anonymity to speak candidly, argued that Democrats’ targeting of Wittman in its proposed redistricting map is risky for the future of Virginia’s defense infrastructure and industry at large.
The aide speculated that the Trump administration could someday slow the construction of aircraft carriers in light of questions about their efficacy in modern warfare or even target bases in Virginia for realignment and closure.
“They’re taking a gamble,” the aide said of Democratic attempts to unseat a champion of the state’s defense industry with influence and seniority. “They’re trading political dominance for potential irrelevance in the defense sphere.”
Abigail Gost, a spokesperson for Wittman, said that the congressman has no plans to leave Congress and “believes continuity and experience matter — especially at a time of heightened global instability and rapid change”
Connor O’Brien contributed to this report.
A top pollster for President Donald Trump is pushing back on recent public polling showing Republican Mike Rogers trailing progressive Abdul El-Sayed in the marquee Michigan Senate race.
Tony Fabrizio, who is conducting polling for Rogers, says the polls released this month are over-sampling Democratic-leaning voters, specifically college-educated and Black voters, according to an internal memo obtained by Blue Light News. A Susquehanna poll released this month showed El-Sayed leading by seven points and a TIPP poll showed him leading by four points.
El-Sayed’s lead in those polls is a “fake narrative,” Fabrizio wrote. His polling for AARP — conducted alongside Democratic firm Impact Research — showed the race essentially tied.
The warning follows huge polling misses in the Democratic primaries in the Michigan, Wisconsin and Florida, which he wrote were “some of the most egregious examples of public polling failures in recent memory.” It’s also a sign that Republicans are wary of the string of bad polling numbers for Rogers in the race, which is crucial for determining control of the chamber.
Jim Lee, CEO of Susquehanna Polling and Research, told Blue Light News that the firm did not oversample any demographics. “I think their head is in the sand,” Lee said, noting in part what he said was a gap in enthusiasm between Democratic and Republican voters this cycle.
TIPP didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Fabrizio, in the memo, argued on the Susquehanna poll: “50% of the sample in this survey is college-educated – making them massively overrepresented to what they should be. We took a look at 2022 and 2024 Exit Polls and VoteCast data and, as shown below, there is no indication that the Michigan electorate will be anywhere near 50% college-educated. In fact, it is unlikely they will be even 40% college-educated.”
He also noted “a huge gap” between college-educated and non-college educated voters.
“This was the driving issue of the public polling misses for President Trump in 2016 and 2024, especially in the Upper Midwest states of Michigan and Wisconsin,” Fabrizio added. “By increasing college-educated voters by 10+ points, and thus decreasing non-college educated voters by the same, we can pretty much guarantee this poll is significantly overestimating El-Sayed’s vote share.”
President Donald Trump and hemp industry lobbyists are hoping to win a final vote on Capitol Hill next week to skirt a ban on intoxicating products — with shutdown politics as leverage.
Nine months ago, Congress cleared a bill to close a loophole created in 2018 that allowed the sale of some hemp-derived products containing types of THC colloquially known as “diet weed.” That ban is supposed to take effect in mid-November, or roughly 11 weeks, to limit overall THC levels in hemp products that can get people high — including gummies, canned drinks, pills and vapes.
But Trump and industry leaders successfully lobbied Senate leaders to add language to a government funding patch earlier this month to delay the ban until mid-December, with the administration promising instead to finalize regulations cracking down on how the products are made and sold.
Now House Republican leaders are aiming to clear that bill for Trump’s signature early next week, according to three people granted anonymity to disclose private discussions. And many GOP lawmakers are not pleased at the prospect of being rolled.
Rep. Riley Moore (R-W.Va.) told reporters last week that he expected House lawmakers would “iron out” some “sticking points” with the Senate-passed funding bill, “particularly the hemp issue,” rather than pass the legislation without changes — which appears to be GOP leadership’s current plan.
Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) was more blunt: “it is morally reprehensible to threaten a shutdown over a loophole Congress agreed to close to less than a year ago,” he said in a statement Thursday.
Yet despite fierce pushback from lawmakers warning that the intoxicating products are harming Americans, hemp industry leaders are preparing for a victory, betting members of Congress ultimately care more about swiftly passing legislation to avert a Sept. 30 government shutdown before the midterms.
“Any effort to try to shut down the government — over a one-month delay on a hemp issue — I don’t think is going to fly well with most members of Congress,” Jonathan Miller, a top lawyer for the U.S. Hemp Roundtable advocacy group, said in an interview this week.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment about its plans for imposing new rules on hemp products in the coming months. But the Trump administration is expected to need more time than mid-December to finalize regulations, so hemp industry representatives are discussing a “regulatory bridge” that would impose temporary rules while continuing to avoid a full ban, according to Miller.
That could include restricting purchase to adults age 21 and older, blocking imports from China, mandating certain manufacturing practices, cracking down on copycat products that look like popular candy or potato chips and requiring transparency in product labeling.
While lawmakers have been back home over their summer break, hemp industry leaders have fanned out across the country to make their case for this plan. “The hemp industry does not have an August recess,” Christopher Lackner, head of the Hemp Beverage Alliance, said in an interview this month of the group’s work to facilitate passage of the Senate-passed funding bill.
Trump administration officials have also been telling reluctant lawmakers they will use the one-month delay to work on regulations. “The White House has committed to me that they’re committed to regulate the industry,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said in an interview this month.
Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), who fought in the Senate to retain the ban as originally intended, said White House officials have said “they don’t want another extension, and I agree with that.”
In a statement, Ricketts said that “manufactured high-THC products like gummies and drinks are putting our kids in the hospital” and need to be taken “off our shelves.”
Some supporters of the ban say the White House and industry are just employing delay tactics to get to December, when lawmakers will face another pressure campaign to delay the ban while they are motivated to avert a shutdown before leaving town for the holidays.
“What they’re really after is to try to jam this on some must-pass, end-of-the-year funding,” Budd told reporters earlier this month. “That’s really what this is about.”
Budd fought to block the delay in the Senate as part of the government funding measure, but his amendment to that end was shot down 61-32 before the chamberpassed the legislation, sending it on for House action.
Trump personally called Budd after the senator filed the amendment and talked about creating federal regulations for hemp products, according to a Senate aide granted anonymity to describe the private discussion.
Days later, Budd demanded a vote on the amendment anyway and continues to slam the hemp industry.
“It is clear that businesses that sell unregulated, intoxicating products will stop at nothing to protect their bottom line, even at the expense of children’s health and safety,” he said in a statement this week.
Besides lawmakers fighting to ban intoxicating hemp products, others are pushing alongside the White House and industry for federal regulations.
Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-W.Va.) has crafted legislation that would direct the Food and Drug Administration to create federal rules for intoxicating hemp products and wants to see mandates for third-party testing, as well as new THC limits per serving.
Griffith told reporters Thursday the “deadline push” in the Senate-passed government funding measure “is not long enough” to finalize necessary regulations.
Since state limits for THC vary widely throughout the country and the federal government has taken years to step in since the hemp loophole was created in 2018, Griffith argued it makes more sense to regulate the intoxicating products than to enact a federal ban.
“That horse is out of the barn,” he said. “What we need to do is corral it.”
Kelsey Brugger, Amanda Friedman and Rachel Shin contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump’s $400-million super PAC is taking its first steps into the general election: hosting a public event in battleground Michigan, headlined by Vice President JD Vance.
Battleground Republicans have been clamoring for Trump’s MAGA Inc. to spend in competitive races. The Michigan event is an early indicator of how the massive group might seek to use its funds to help the party keep control of Washington.
Vance will be joined in Sterling, Michigan, on Monday by GOP Senate nominee Mike Rogers, 10th District nominee Mike Bouchard Jr. and gubernatorial nominee John James, along with several other Michigan Republicans, according to an event advisory from MAGA Inc.
The GOP sees Michigan’s open seat as its best Senate pickup target this fall as Rogers faces former public health leader and progressive Abdul El-Sayed, who emerged from a grueling primary earlier this month.
“MAGA Inc. will be hosting events throughout the nation to ensure that Republicans retain control of Congress in order to finish cleaning up the mess the Biden-Harris-Pelosi-Schumer Democrats left,” said Alex Pfeiffer, spokesperson for MAGA Inc. “We’re not going back to their record inflation, open borders, and surging crime.”
MAGA Inc. is sitting on more funds than any other super PAC, and Republican donors and battleground candidates have been hoping it will unleash that money to help the party keep control of the House and Senate.
So far, the group has only spent only a few million dollars out of its massive fundraising haul, and its funds have largely gone to competitive Republican primaries. Most recently, it spent $827,000 on phone calls and text messages to boost Sen. Darline Graham (R-S.C.) in the state’s special primary.
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