Congress

Inside Congress’ warring factions over how to fund the government

Published

1 year ago

September 8, 2025

Battle lines are emerging on Capitol Hill in the fight to avert a government shutdown in three weeks — and it’s not just Republicans vs. Democrats.

On one side, fiscal hawks are joining with the White House to keep federal agencies running on static funding levels, ideally into January or longer. On the other, Democrats and some top Republicans want to punt no further than November to buy congressional negotiators more time to cut a cross-party compromise on fresh funding totals for federal programs.

In the end, the standoff could hinge on Speaker Mike Johnson’s appetite for trying to pass a funding package backed by President Donald Trump but not Democrats, as he did in the spring — and whether Senate Democrats once again capitulate rather than see government operations grind to a halt on Oct. 1.

“They jammed us last time,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), a top appropriator, said in an interview. “And I am encouraging my Republican friends who want to do appropriations to understand that that won’t work this time.”

Even more irate after Trump’s latest move to unilaterally cancel almost $5 billion in foreign aid through a so-called pocket rescission, Democrats are warning there will be a funding lapse if Republicans don’t negotiate with them. And while they’re being cautious not to box themselves in with ultimatums on funding totals or specific policy demands, they’re starting to flex their muscles by floating concessions Republicans could make in exchange for support across the aisle.

That includes making a deal by the end of the year to head off the expiration of enhanced health insurance subsidies that would result in premium hikes come January for millions of Americans.

There are glimmers of bipartisan talks happening behind the scenes: Johnson and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries recently discussed passing a short-term spending patch until November or December, though no decisions were made.

And top House and Senate appropriators are gelling behind a hybrid approach: attempting a bill with a full year of updated funding levels for the USDA, the Department of Veterans Affairs and congressional operations, tied to a short-term extension for other agencies, to allow for more negotiations.

But there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical about a bipartisan funding deal coming together, with Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), a senior appropriator, putting the odds of a shutdown at “50-50, perhaps higher.”

As of late last week, the top Senate leaders — Republican John Thune and Democrat Chuck Schumer — haven’t yet spoken about the upcoming funding deadline, in a further sign that cross-party talks are still nascent.

Meanwhile, House hard-liners, backed by some of their conservative Senate counterparts, appear to be digging in to demand a lengthy stopgap bill, rather than a short-term patch meant to facilitate a more comprehensive bipartisan funding measure down the road. One Republican, granted anonymity to share the conservative strategy, said fiscal hawks want a funding patch “to 2026” or for the entirety of the coming fiscal year “if we can get it.”

Continually running the government on stopgaps is part of White House budget director Russ Vought’s strategy to shrink federal spending as he roots for the government funding process to be “less bipartisan.”

Those kick-the-can funding bills give the White House more leeway to shift cash while depriving Democrats of any increases in non-defense funding and GOP defense hawks the military budget increases they seek. Then, using party-line measures like the domestic-policy megabill and the $9 billion clawbacks package Congress cleared this summer, Republicans can add or subtract funding without needing to rely on the votes of Senate Democrats.

The White House predicts that Trump’s more recent, unilateral cancellation of $4.9 billion will only help build support among GOP fiscal hawks for a “clean” continuing resolution, or CR, that simply drags out current funding levels for weeks or months more. In this scenario, Democrats will have to fall in line, a White House official told reporters late last month after Trump nixed the foreign aid funding.

“It’s very hard for me to believe that they’re going to oppose a clean CR that would cause them to be responsible for a government shutdown,” said the official, granted anonymity to speak candidly.

The Senate’s top Democratic appropriator, Patty Murray of Washington, warned it won’t work for Republicans to blame Democrats: If the GOP goes it alone, she said last week, “well, then, that is a Republican shutdown.”

Democrats are also still grappling with how the pocket rescission will factor into their government funding demands. Schatz called it a “point of friction” but added, “I’m not prepared to articulate any red lines to you.”

Notwithstanding the administration’s latest attempt to revoke funding, setting static spending levels through next September would be a nonstarter for many members of both parties. For Democrats, going into next year with a stopgap bill would force them to give up their biggest point of leverage — another end-of-the-year government funding deadline — to try to get a deal on extending the enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits that will expire Dec. 31.

On the GOP side, some conservatives view a full-year stopgap bill as locking in spending levels set under President Joe Biden, while defense hawks warn that it undermines the military. Those GOP divisions would make it harder, if not impossible, for Johnson and the White House to try to repeat their go-it-alone playbook from the spring.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said he didn’t think a full-year, flat-funded spending bill would come to fruition: “We can talk about it all we want, we always do. Same plot, different actors.”

Passage of a lengthy funding patch would especially sting for Republicans appropriators, who are quietly trying to retain relevance amid Trump’s escalating assault on Congress’ power through tactics to shift, freeze and cancel funding that lawmakers previously approved.

House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole, who consistently refrains from criticizing the president, told his underlings last week that the best way for lawmakers to protect Congress’ power of the purse is to negotiate a bipartisan funding agreement now, rather than fall back on a continuing resolution.

“The way to be successful is, get a deal done. That’s what we need to do,” the Oklahoma Republican told fellow appropriators during a recent markup. “But please don’t have any illusions that we’re cavalierly surrendering our power.”

Still, Cole hasn’t received the blessing of his leadership to begin cross-party negotiations.

“We are in discussions now with the administration, with the Senate, about how to proceed,” he said. “We don’t have any final goal or deadline. But I would prefer to get this done sooner rather than later, and I don’t want another CR.”

Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.

Congress

Sanders to rally for Troy Jackson in Maine

Published

4 hours ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

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.

Congress

Hill: Trump’s ‘lack of favorability’ creating challenging politics

Published

4 hours ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

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.

Congress

Sanders, AOC, Merkley propose bill to ban Flock cameras

Published

9 hours ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) on Friday released text of legislation intended to ban the use of Flock surveillance cameras and other license plate readers.

Flock has faced severe public backlash against the surveillance technology following reports that police officers misused the technology to track women, and it has the largest network of license plate readers across the U.S. Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) hosted a hearing last month probing its potential misuses, although the company’s CEO Garrett Langley did not appear.

The latest bill, unveiled Friday and named the Ban Flock Act, would bar federal agencies from using automated license plate readers or accessing data from the technology and prevent federal grants from funding states and local governments that use automated license plate readers.

“At a time of growing concern about the unchecked power of artificial intelligence, Flock is eviscerating the very notion of privacy by installing tens of thousands of cameras in communities across America without their consent,” Sanders, who has positioned himself as a leading progressive voice on AI technology, said in a statement. “We cannot allow America to become a surveillance state where a handful of AI oligarchs profit by giving the government the power to track our every movement.”

Ocasio-Cortez similarly condemned the surveillance capabilities of the technology and said the bill would “enforce our constitutional right to privacy and protect Americans from both corporate and government surveillance.”

“No one should have this unchecked surveillance power at their fingertips,” Merkley added.

Republicans have introduced similar efforts to regulate license plate readers, such as Hawley’s Stop Flock Abuse Act, which would require audits and limits on unauthorized searches.

Flock did not immediately respond to a request for comment.