Congress
Capitol agenda: The GOP’s biggest shutdown hurdles
It’s a pivotal week for the appropriations process as Congress looks to pass twelve spending bills before the Sept. 30 shutdown cliff.
Expect the Senate to work on passing its first batch of bills over the next few days, with full committee markups continuing in both chambers. In the House, appropriators plan to have a subcommittee markup of the bill funding the Treasury Department, the Judiciary and IRS Monday evening. No funding measures are currently on the House floor schedule.
Here’s what to watch as Republicans navigate the hurdles that could force them toward another stopgap funding bill.
DEM WATCH — All eyes are going to be on Democrats as they discuss whether to use the one point of leverage they have: the 60 votes needed to pass appropriations bills in the Senate. But Democrats don’t appear to have a solidified plan yet.
White House Budget Director Russ Vought last week said point-blank he was satisfied to see a less bipartisan appropriations process than in years past, a comment that could embolden congressional Republicans who want to put their conservative mark on the appropriations process.
Democrats have voiced their disapproval with the trajectory of government funding negotiations, specifically with Trump officials and their Hill allies for freezing, canceling and now clawing back funding Congress already approved. So far, however, they have stopped short of threatening a government shutdown on Oct.1 if Republicans don’t change course.
It was a dilemma Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer faced back in March. He ultimately faced significant heat from his base over his decision that the consequences of a shutdown would be worse than letting the Trump administration continue to run roughshod over Congress’ “power of the purse.”
“To be blunt, I don’t think there’s one tactic or approach that is going to solve this from any individual Democrat,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), a top appropriator, said in an interview. “The Republicans have to decide whether they want to be totally lobotomized or not.”
AUGUST RECESS — Senate Majority Leader John Thune was already considering making a dent in the government funding process before the month-long August break. Now, President Donald Trump is calling on the Senate to stay through the recess to continue confirming his nominees, which would give Thune an opportunity to get more work done on appropriations, too.
Not everyone wants that. Many Republican lawmakers are eager to get back to their districts for the state work period to highlight wins from the GOP megabill — and provide counterprogramming to Democratic messaging about the deep Medicaid cuts in the new law. That summer sales pitch is a top priority for many senators.
FREEDOM CAUCUS — Then, there’s the Freedom Caucus, which has been known to swoop in at the eleventh hour to undermine carefully-constructed legislative dealmaking with hard-line demands. Reps. French Hill (R-Ark.) and G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.) — chairs of the Financial Services and Agriculture panels, respectively — got a strong taste of that tactic while attempting to pass cryptocurrency bills last week.
“It is an operational change from how Congress has historically operated, where, if the Chairman and the committee blessed it, everybody just said, ‘okay,’” said Freedom Caucus member and Florida Rep. Byron Donalds to reporters in the middle of last week’s crypto drama. “That’s just not the way Congress is working anymore.”
The group has notoriously forced House Republicans to rely on Democrats to shore up the necessary votes to pass government funding bills. If the faction’s hard-liners once again insist on lowering spending levels or inserting conservative policy riders in this year’s appropriations bills, that could prove to be a problem for Republicans — and put even more pressure on House Democrats to decide if they’re going to bail out the GOP or force a shutdown.
What else we’re watching:
— DHS gavel race: Members of the House GOP Steering panel will make their recommendation for a new Homeland Security chair Monday evening to fill the vacancy to be left by Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.) once he retires from Congress. Up for consideration: GOP Reps. Carlos Giménez of Florida, Michael Guest of Mississippi, Andrew Garbarino of New York and Clay Higgins of Louisiana.
— More immigration bills: Now that they’ve passed their sweeping domestic policy bill that would turbocharge border enforcement activities, House Republicans are turning to legislation that would further crack down on illegal immigration. The House is set to take up legislation this week sponsored by Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.) that would increase penalties on immigrants who illegally enter the country and then reenter the U.S. after being removed.
Jennifer Scholtes, Nicholas Wu and Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.
Congress
Trump apparently shares Tom Cotton’s phone number in push to make Daylight Saving Time permanent
President Donald Trump appeared to share Sen. Tom Cotton’s phone number in a Saturday morning social media post imploring the Arkansas Republican to get behind a bill to make Daylight Saving Time permanent.
“Almost everybody wants “The Sunshine Protection Act” to pass, except for Tom Cotton,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “To the Great People of Arkansas, please let your Senator know it would be a GREAT Bipartisan WIN for the United States Senate, and for America, itself.”
The president has spent months personally pushing Senate Republicans to end the practice that sees Americans change their clocks twice a year, cementing more sunlight hours in the evening for all twelve months of the calendar. Cotton, whom Trump called “a friend of mine” in the Saturday post, has long argued that making daylight saving time permanent would leave children, farmers and other early risers in the dark for hours on winter mornings.
One of Trump’s key selling points on Saturday: the PGA tour.
“The PGA TOUR, as an example, needs more Daylight in the afternoon in order to finish their Tournaments,” he said, attaching a letter from PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp endorsing the bill. ”Likewise, regular Golfers, Tennis Players, Hunters and, perhaps most importantly, Farmers who want more Daylight to play or work.
A Blue Light News call to the cellphone number went to voicemail. A spokesperson for Cotton did not respond to a request for comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The current version of the bill was introduced in the House in January 2025 by Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), with Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) leading the Senate version. The legislation would make daylight saving time permanent across most of the country, ending the twice-yearly clock changes. The legislation has been stalled in the Senate since July.
The president encouraged supporters of the bill, dubbed the “The Sunshine Protection Act,” to call Cotton to “let your Senator know it would be a GREAT Bipartisan WIN for the United States Senate, and for America, itself.”
During the 2016 Republican presidential primary, he publicly gave out the personal cellphone number of then-rival Sen. Lindsey Graham after the South Carolina Republican criticized him. Trump, who came to count on Graham as a reliable Senate ally after he won the presidency, revisited the moment during Graham’s funeral in July, acknowledging that sharing the number was something he “shouldn’t have done.”
Kelsey Brugger contributed to this report.
Sen. Bernie Sanders will hit the road for Troy Jackson in Maine starting Oct. 10, the first time the progressive leader will stump for the candidate this cycle.
The Vermont independent plans to hold three rallies with Jackson, according to an itinerary shared first with Blue Light News: first in Bangor on Oct. 10th followed by Lewiston and Biddeford on Oct. 11.
The Maine swing will kick off Sanders’ travel for the final stretch of the midterms, covering ground throughout October for House and Senate candidates, POLITICO reported.
“Bernie and Troy know that working people built this country and deserve a government that fights for them,” Jackson spokesperson Dan Gottlieb told Blue Light News. “Susan Collins has had nearly 30 years to deliver, and working Mainers are still getting squeezed while she serves the billionaires and corporate interests who bankroll her campaigns. Mainers don’t need another six years of excuses.”
Sanders campaigned ahead of major wins for progressives in the primary season, speaking at more than 60 rallies since last year’s Fight the Oligarchy tour and endorsing more than 90 candidates up and down the ballot.
He’s also opening his substantial $23 million campaign war chest, POLITICO reported, and contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars toMinnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan’s Senate campaign and others including Angie Nixon in Florida and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison,
Sanders will return to Maine after initially backing Graham Platner’s campaign for Senate. Allegations reported by POLITICO ultimately led him to call on the Democratic nominee to drop out of the race.
Sanders had not formally endorsed Jackson since he clinched the nomination from Platner, though he previously backed Jackson’s initial run for governor.
House Financial Services Chair French Hill said he has “no concerns” about winning back his Arkansas seat in the upcoming midterm elections, but the six-term House member acknowledged the political headwinds for his party.
“I consider the atmosphere a very tough political environment right now because of President [Donald] Trump’s lack of favorability at the top, and you know people are concerned about, as I say, what it’s like to live under an inflated economy the last four years,” Hill said in an interview.
Hill is in a solidly red district, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, and said he is up against a “weaker candidate this time than I’ve had in past races.” Polling in the district, however, has shown a tighter race. The two polls done this year placed Democratic challenger Chris Jones ahead of Hill by a few percentage points. Any perceived polling victory for Jones is still well within the margin of error, and one of the polls had a Democratic sponsor.
Stephannie Lane Baker, a spokesperson for Jones, said that “of all the Republicans in Congress, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee doesn’t get to dodge responsibility for this economy. He’s in trouble, and he knows it.”
Additionally, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s PAC, Ready for the Fight, committed more than $1 million in television ads through the next five weeks for Jones’ race in Arkansas’s 2nd District, Jordan Abudayyeh, a spokesperson for the PAC confirmed. Overall Democratic spending on advertising for the race was just over $1 million, primarily made up by contributions from the Ready for the Fight PAC, with Republicans spending almost $2.7 million on ad buys, according to AdImpact, an advertising tracking service.
Hill said he has addressed affordability concerns “head on” this Congress.
“My work on housing, my work on the Price Stability Act, my work to try to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse, and drop the federal budget deficit as a percentage of GDP,” Hill said. “All these things can contribute to a more affordable environment for people. So I’ve tried to make that a forefront of my campaign this year.”
Hill was a key architect of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a bipartisan housing affordability bill that became law in July. The Price Stability Act, which is unlikely to become law this year, would narrow the Federal Reserve’s current dual mandate of pursuing maximum employment and price stability to focus exclusively on containing inflation.
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