Congress

Democrats’ shutdown endgame is sketchy as deadline looms

Published

1 year ago

September 18, 2025

Democrats are gearing up to reject a GOP stopgap funding bill and potentially spark a government shutdown. What happens then, no one seems to know.

Two weeks ahead of the key deadline, party leaders are staking out a rhetorical hard line demanding that their Republican counterparts come to the negotiating table to discuss concessions on health care and other issues.

They released an alternative funding patch Wednesday that extends government funding through the end of October and tacks on a host of policy demands, including an extension of health care subsidies, the repeal of Medicaid cuts in the GOP megabill and more.

Democrats hope the counteroffer will kindle bipartisan talks. But Republicans are instead accusing them of hypocrisy, citing all the times they insisted the GOP had to swallow a “clean” short-term funding bill in past shutdown fights.

Still, under tremendous pressure from their base to show that they are willing to fight President Donald Trump, Democrats are flirting with a politically risky shutdown without a firm exit plan or even an idea of what victory might look like.

“We may not have the luxury of a victory scenario,” said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.). “I think what we’re trying to do is avoid things getting worse. I don’t think victory is in anyone’s hopes and dreams in this moment.”

Thus far, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries have focused on the lowest common denominator uniting the various factions inside their ranks: demanding negotiations in return for Democratic votes to avoid a shutdown — which are necessary due to the Senate filibuster.

But their GOP counterparts, Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, have been more than happy to turn the tables and paint Democrats as the ones making unreasonable demands.

Already chafing at the lack of GOP outreach, Democrats were further inflamed by Trump, who said on Friday that Republicans shouldn’t “even bother dealing with them” on a funding deal, Senate math notwithstanding.

“We have a lot of diverse views in the caucus, but we’re all professional politicians and an iron law in politics is that if you want someone’s vote, you have to ask what it would take to get it,” said Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, who is in line to be the next Democratic whip. “And they haven’t even asked.”

Unlike in March, when Schumer flinched in a similarstandoff, party leaders are now betting they’re on firmer political ground for a fight. But it’s still not clear just how comfortable Democrats, who have generally tried to portray themselves as Capitol Hill’s “adults in the room,” will feel as a possible Oct. 1 shutdown grows nearer — or after one comes to pass.

Asked Wednesday night if he was willing to shut the government down, Schumer bristled: “Ask the Republicans if they are willing to shut the government down.”

Democrats could lose some of their own members on the GOP bill. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) has already vowed to support it, and several other Democratic senators have yet to put themselves in the “no” column with the whip effort still underway.

Jeffries privately huddled with swing-district lawmakers Wednesday morning to hear out their concerns. Most of them, while publicly declining to commit to opposing the stopgap funding bill, are staking out conditions for support that the GOP is unlikely to give them this month — or ever.

There are few signs from Republicans that they will be any more amenable to opposition demands if Senate Democrats reject the seven-week GOP funding bill and the government potentially shuts down.

Asked about the idea that Republicans had to give Democrats something in return for their votes, the typically affable Thune snapped Wednesday, arguing that Republicans supported similar funding bills more than a dozen times in recent years.

“What we’re talking about right now is giving the appropriators a chance to actually pass bills. … Is that difficult to understand?” Thune said. “Where are we supposed to do big policy initiatives on a seven-week extension to fund the government?”

Thune indicated this week that Schumer is free to call him or come to his office for a meeting. Democrats believe the South Dakota Republican, as majority leader, has to initiate the negotiations.

Meanwhile, there is hardly a firm consensus on what Democrats would consider a worthy trade for their votes beyond a general emphasis on health care. Most Democrats agree they need to push for an extension of health insurance subsidies that are set to expire next year as a baseline demand. Others want to push for the unlikely reversal of the Medicaid cuts from the GOP’s “big, beautiful” bill. Still others want firm protections against future Trump administration attempts to withhold congressionally approved spending.

“We expect them to come and negotiate and to live up to what they told their voters back in ’24, not even a year ago, what they were going to do, which was lower costs. And health care is a huge part of that,” House Minority Whip Katherine Clark told reporters Wednesday.

Many of those demands were included in Democrats’ alternative stopgap released Wednesday. But GOP leaders insist there is no way to cut a deal in the time remaining — even on extending the expiring health subsidies, which has some Republican support. Schumer and Jeffries have been cagey about possibly swallowing a short-term funding punt now in exchange for potential negotiations later.

Asked Wednesday evening if getting a commitment to work on issues like the health care subsidies would be enough to get Democrats on board with a stopgap, Schumer did not definitively reject the idea.

“We have two weeks,” he said. “They should sit down and talk to us and we maybe can get to a good proposal, let’s see. But when they don’t talk to us, there’s no hope of getting to a good proposal.”

And pressed Wednesday about whether their calls for “bipartisan negotiation” meant that any talks had to be concluded by Sept. 30 or if ongoing talks would be enough, several Democratic senators declined to answer directly.

“That’s a very smart question. I’m not sure I know the answer,” said Schatz, adding that Thune’s “come by anytime” rhetoric is not the way things should work.

More generally, a sense of gung-ho enthusiasm about a shutdown fight was hard to detect inside the Democratic ranks.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who represents hundreds of thousands of federal workers who would be furloughed in a shutdown, suggested it was a little too early to go to the mattresses.

“What is today — the 17th of September?” he said. “Let’s have a debate about the alternative.”

Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democratic leader who joined Schumer to advance the GOP funding bill in March, indicated Wednesday that he expects to vote against Republicans’ proposal this time.

But asked if he was comfortable going into a shutdown, Durbin rejected the premise.

“There’s another option available,” he said. “And that’s bipartisan negotiation.”

Congress

Sanders, AOC, Merkley propose bill to ban Flock cameras

Published

5 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.

Congress

Capitol agenda: Dems spend big to help Hakeem’s dream

Published

8 hours ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Democrats watching Speaker Mike Johnson deal with a chaotically slim majority have seen enough — and they’re trying to avoid the same fate.

The party is investing in deep-red districts that could pad a future majority and strengthen the hand of Hakeem Jeffries, who’s widely favored as speaker if Democrats win the chamber in November.

“Another five-or-so-seat buffer would be a game-changer,” said one senior House Democrat, who like others in this report was granted anonymity to discuss internal party dynamics. That lawmaker added it would help Jeffries “rise above some of the incoming bullshit he’s going to have to deal with.”

Every extra seat would help Jeffries secure the speaker’s gavel without having to make concessions to the two clashing blocs within his party: progressives and moderates.

Recent spending reflects these ambitions. Since the start of August, Democratic-aligned groups and candidates have spent or committed more than $73 million in ad dollars to GOP-held districts that President Donald Trump won by at least 10 points in 2024, according to a Blue Light News review of data from AdImpact. The NewDem Action Fund, the political arm of the centrist New Democrat Coalition, is spending in some even redder districts.

“Every single endorsed candidate supports Hakeem Jeffries for speaker of the House,” said the fund’s chair, Rep. Greg Stanton. “We will be a strong governing partner with Hakeem Jeffries to make sure that his speakership is as successful as possible.”

Tight majorities are misery-makers for speakers. Before Johnson, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy gave numerous concessions to his party’s right flank to assume the role — only to later be ousted by those same lawmakers. And former Speaker Nancy Pelosi had to cut a deal with moderates to secure her post in 2018 by promising to limit her leadership term.

Even with the gavel secured, a speaker has more flexibility to manage the floor if he or she can let some party colleagues peel off on tough votes.

Progressive challengers ousted a handful of Democratic incumbents in primaries this year, and they could adopt tactics from the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus if Democrats win just a narrow majority.

Meanwhile, newly elected moderates, particularly from rural districts that swung heavily for Trump in 2024, could end up as a bigger problem for Jeffries — as they were for Pelosi when she was speaker.

What else we’re watching:

— HAWLEY’S POPULIST AI REBELLION: Sen. Josh Hawley’s push against artificial intelligence is placing an unmistakable marker for anti-tech rhetoric in the 2028 campaign among ambitious Republicans. Hawley’s call for AI safety legislation this week — including imposing corporate liability when AI causes harm — contrasts with Trump’s favoring of voluntary standards and exposes the growing rift between Republicans on how to respond to the technology. But Hawley’s influence is poised to expand as more Republicans start to echo his tone.

— GOP ADS SPUR CORPORATE HEARTBURN: A series of TV campaign ads this midterms season has highlighted a growing reality: On the right it’s become increasingly in vogue to bash big business. The ascendancy of Trump has ushered in a new era of skepticism toward multinational corporations in a party traditionally known as corporation-friendly. That puts big financial services firms, health insurance companies and tech titans — the subjects of the hottest rhetoric — at risk for becoming high-profile political punching bags for Republican 2028 presidential hopefuls.

Andrew Howard, Meredith Lee Hill, Riley Rogerson, Jessica Piper, John Hendel, Jasper Goodman and Victoria Guida contributed to this report.

Congress

The low-profile Democrat helping shape her party’s AI agenda

Published

11 hours ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

As Democrats scramble to create a viable plan to regulate artificial intelligence, one little-known lawmaker is playing a major behind-the-scenes role in shaping her party’s approach to the technology.

Rep. Valerie Foushee, a North Carolina Democrat in her second term, is one of three co-chairs of a commission tasked by Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to generate AI policy recommendations.

It’s a position that has given her significant power to mold Democrats’ thinking on the rapidly evolving issue, even as her fellow commission members cut more public personas through regular appearances at news conferences and in media hits: Rep. Ted Lieu of California is vice-chair of the House Democratic Caucus, while Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey has built a reputation as a self-styled moderate dealmaker.

In an interview earlier this week, Foushee said the commission has submitted a “first draft” of its much-anticipated recommendations to Jeffries. And while Jeffries will ultimately provide feedback to inform the final report, she said she would push for there to “always be a human element” in any AI regulatory framework, with civil rights and liberties at the center.

“We have seen evidence of how technology can be used for discrimination,” said Foushee. “We’ve seen how some groups have been excluded.”

A member of the Congressional Black Caucus who also associates with both the Congressional Progressive Caucus and centrist New Democrat Coalition, Foushee is representative of a broad, mainstream swath of House Democrats that has yet to stake a clear position on AI. And her vision for an AI regulatory model that keeps humans in control and builds in civil rights protections could provide a blueprint for her party.

She doesn’t want to stifle innovation, she explained; rather, “my focus is to make sure that we’re not leaving anybody behind.”

Foushee said she didn’t set out to lead on AI policy, but joined a bipartisan AI task force in the previous Congress given her seat on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee.

Since the task force released its recommendations in December 2024, House Republican leaders considered its mission complete, according to a senior GOP leadership aide granted anonymity to describe internal conversations. So when Speaker Mike Johnson opted not to reconstitute the panel in January 2025, Jeffries created his Democrat-only commission to fill that void, tapping Foushee as one of its commissioners.

“I was glad to be one of those that the leader thought might be helpful in leading us into the future,” she said. “So I don’t know if I would say that I was, you know, moved to do it, but certainly happy to do my part.”

Lieu, in a statement, called Foushee “unwavering in her commitment to ensuring AI systems don’t harm civil rights and equal opportunity.”

“I visited Val’s district earlier this year,” he continued, “and saw firsthand how effectively she works with local stakeholders to address the threats and unlock the possibilities of AI in her community.”

Foushee represents parts of the so-called Research Triangle encompassing Durham and Chapel Hill — the homes of Duke University and the University of North Carolina, where AI technologies are being studied. Her state is also a major hub for data centers powering the AI boom.

In her work with Lieu and Gottheimer, Foushee said “we’re all involved in everything” and that “you might say we’ve grown on each other.” Her main area of interest, though, has been to elevate civil rights and liberties protections.

She has introduced multiple bills to that end. One piece of legislation would require people to be told about when they are engaging with a chatbot instead of a human. Another would seek to expand participation in the AI research, education and workforce development among Historically Black Colleges and Universities and other minority-serving institutions.

Foushee’s work on the commission is also being informed by her regular engagement with each of the major AI labs. In her eyes, Anthropic has been the most receptive to regulatory measures while others have favored more “pro-innovation” policies.

She was adamant, however, that Anthropic was in no way influencing the AI policies she could soon be shopping to colleagues — even though a political action committee funded by Anthropic executives spent a little over a million dollars to support her in a competitive primary earlier this year.

“Let me just say to you that no one should be worried or concerned,” Foushee said. “My work on AI has always been focused on establishing guardrails and holding corporations accountable. There is nothing that you will see in any legislation that I have introduced, led, co-led, or co-sponsored that has not been towards holding corporations accountable and protecting the American public.”

In any event, Foushee said she has had no direct outreach from Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, since he led calls last month for a slowdown of advanced AI development amid warnings it could soon pose an imminent threat to human civilization.

“When … you’re not allowing for the engagement of members of Congress, and not even an opportunity to provide input or to be engaged in the conversation, it makes me wonder what those efforts are about,” said Foushee.

A spokesperson for Anthropic did not return a request for comment, while Nate Evans, a spokesperson for OpenAI, said the company was “deeply engaged with Congress on federal policy to advance AI safety, through dozens of meetings in recent weeks with members of both parties in both chambers.”

Representatives from Anthropic and OpenAI also briefed members of the Science Committee in mid-September.

All three commission co-chairs have been tight-lipped about what their AI recommendations could entail — especially as lawmakers in both parties are beginning to sense real urgency to rein in the technology and are desperate for legislative solutions.

It also remains to be seen whether the forthcoming agenda will unify a party that has been largely aligned on the need for regulation but deeply split on the specifics.

Some progressives, led by Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar of Texas, support banning highly sophisticated AI systems and pausing AI development until a government-led vetting procedure can be implemented.

Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.), meanwhile, has introduced what is currently one of the only comprehensive, bipartisan bills to regulate advanced AI models — but it stops significantly short of the pauses championed by progressives and opens a thorny debate about whether to preempt state AI laws with an overarching federal framework.

Foushee said she has not signed onto Casar’s proposal to ban superintelligence, explaining she has yet to review it. She did throw cold water on another progressive-led proposal to place a moratorium on data centers, saying it should be up to local jurisdictions whether to build the controversial, energy-sucking facilities.

She has not decided whether she will co-sponsor the bill Trahan painstakingly negotiated with California Republican Rep. Jay Obernolte. Members of both parties have been cautious to associate with the package given the hyper-partisan political environment, especially in the leadup to the midterms.

But Foushee said she supports holding a committee markup of the legislation, adding that when fellow Democrats ask her about the measure, she replies, “I’m not one to say that this member should or should not say or do this, that, or the other. I’m not hell bent on any one particular approach.”

Democrats “should continue to lead but it certainly does not mean to me that there should not be a bipartisan effort to put forward a framework,” said Foushee. “When indeed we are in the majority, then that is what we plan to do.”