Congress
Top Democrats blast House stopgap proposal
Democratic leaders signaled Tuesday they will oppose the GOP-led stopgap funding bill just hours after it was unveiled — and just two weeks before a possible government shutdown.
“The House Republican-only spending bill fails to meet the needs of the American people and does nothing to stop the looming healthcare crisis,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a joint statement. “At a time when families are already being squeezed by higher costs, Republicans refuse to stop Americans from facing double-digit hikes in their health insurance premiums.”
House GOP leaders are teeing up the legislation to extend government funding by seven weeks for a vote later this week. Democrats are under immense pressure from their base to mount a resistance to Blue Light News GOP’s funding moves, and while party leaders have decided to rally around health care, they have not laid out specific demands except to demand Republicans negotiate.
In a separate statement, the two top Democratic appropriators, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), said Tuesday that Republican leaders abandoned bipartisan talks on a spending stopgap that would include three full-year funding bills.
“We stand ready to continue down this path that would give us time to complete full-year bills, if Speaker [Mike] Johnson backs away from this partisan move,” Murray and DeLauro said Tuesday. “House Republican leadership has walked away from negotiations and are now threatening a shutdown by trying to jam through a funding bill on their terms alone.”
Johnson said on a brief interview Tuesday there was “no reason” for Democrats to block the stopgap “because it’s clean and short-term — it’s not a partisan exercise.”
Asked if Republicans would allow a shutdown if Senate Democrats block the measure, or if Republicans would then work on a backup plan to keep the government open, Johnson replied: “We’re gonna see what happens.”
Meredith Lee Hill and Katherine Tully-McManus 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.
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.
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- October
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