Congress

Blast radius of Senate GOP’s latest ‘nuclear’ move could be limited

Published

1 year ago

September 9, 2025

Republicans are preparing to again “go nuclear” on the Senate’s rules. The fallout this time could be limited.

Majority Leader John Thune filed a list of more than 40 nominees Monday night on the Senate floor, the first step toward a vote to change the chamber’s rules later this week that would allow group confirmations for most executive branch picks.

It’s the latest chapter in a long-running partisan fight over the chamber’s norms, which has seen senators slowly whittle away at rules that once demanded bipartisan support for confirmation of presidential nominees.

While Democrats are warning that the decision to speed up approval of most of President Donald Trump’s nominees will come back to bite Republicans, the Senate does not appear headed toward the kind of bitter showdown that marked some of the previous nomination battles.

“I say to my Republican colleagues, think carefully before taking this step. If you go nuclear, it’s going to be a decision you will come to regret,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Monday.

The New York Democrat predicted Trump would push political boundaries even further with his nominees now that they will no longer be voted on individually. But his comments also served as a reminder that turnabout will be fair play under a Democratic president with a Democratic Senate majority.

Even as Schumer issued that warning, however, he reiterated Democrats are open to a bipartisan deal with Republicans on the biggest challenge Congress faces this month: funding the government. Lawmakers have until the end of the month to avoid a shutdown, and they are likely to pass a short-term spending patch to avoid a lapse in spending.

They’re juggling the nominations fight with other political fires, too. Democrats are trying to get a deal to extend federal health insurance subsidies that will expire at the end of the year. Schumer, in his floor speech Monday, also talked about Trump’s judicial nominees, which are not included in the rules change, as well as the economy, saying that the “S.S. Trump is sinking before our eyes” and that Republican lawmakers are still on the ship.

Asked Monday if Republicans would face repercussions for their power move on confirmations, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said that they would — but added it was an issue for “tomorrow.”

Democrats are effectively powerless to prevent Republicans from changing the rules so long as 50 GOP senators plus Vice President JD Vance can stick together. But they also view Republicans’ desire to return to an earlier era, when nominees were confirmed with little fanfare, as a fever dream out of touch with the Senate’s political reality.

“We’re living now under the shadow of the JD Vance rule,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), referring to the now-vice president’s opposition to former President Joe Biden’s U.S. attorney nominees when Vance served as an Ohio senator.

That opposition, Durbin said, prevented Biden “from filling vacancies and many Democrats still remember it. If we’re going to come up with rules, they’ve got to apply to Democrats and Republicans as well.”

Republicans retort that the current Democratic blockade goes well beyond a small subset of Trump nominees — they have withheld unanimous consent for virtually all of the president’s picks, leaving a backlog of roughly 150 nominees waiting to get a floor vote. Leadership got close to notching a confirmations deal earlier this summer, but it unraveled after the White House balked at Democrats’ asking price: unfreezing some agency funding.

The list Thune moved forward with Monday included 48 appointees that received at least some Democratic support in committee. They are mostly low- and mid-level nominees to executive agencies and departments, as well as some ambassadorships — including the nominations of Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr.’s ex-girlfriend, and Callista Gingrich, former Speaker Newt Gingrich’s wife, as envoys to Greece and Switzerland, respectively.

The move toward group confirmations is only the latest tit-for-tat in a nearly two-decade escalation over presidential personnel. Democrats, under Harry Reid, got rid of the 60-vote threshold for most nominees under President Barack Obama. Republicans under Mitch McConnell followed suit for Supreme Court picks. And Republicans subsequently changed the rules to make it faster to confirm most lower- and mid-level picks — steps Democrats used to their own advantage during Biden’s presidency.

Even with the nomination fight heating up again, there have been limits. Cabinet nominees and federal judges are not included in the new group-nominations precedent Republicans want to set, and Durbin said late last week that he was talking with Senate Judiciary Committee Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) about trying to find a more “rational and sensible way” to deal with some of that panel’s nominees. Durbin, the top Democrat on Judiciary, declined to provide further details.

That doesn’t mean there haven’t been any consequences for Republicans’ latest nuclear strike.

Grassley tried to clear a tranche of nominees Monday for a second time but was blocked by Democrats. Schumer blamed Trump for the impasse and offered to reopen negotiations if Republicans would drop their plans to change Senate rules.

“If Republicans are dead-set on going nuclear, we will not grant consent today,” Schumer said.

GOP senators are aware their actions could be used against them in the future, but they say the slow-walking happening right now leaves them little choice.

“You always think about when the shoe is on the other foot, and that is ultimately going to happen at some point,” Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the Republican whip, told reporters last week. “But we’re trying to get back to the way this has been previously.”

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.