Congress

This House Republican has become Mike Johnson’s biggest internal headache

Published

5 months ago

October 14, 2025

California Rep. Kevin Kiley was already one of Speaker Mike Johnson’s loudest Republican critics — even before the government shutdown started earlier this month.

Now two weeks into the standoff, Kiley made clear in an interview Tuesday he has no plans to quiet down on Johnson’s handling of the shutdown, the future of crucial health insurance subsidies and the GOP’s controversial redistricting campaign that has suddenly put Kiley’s own political future in doubt.

Having already called Johnson’s strategy of keeping the House out of session during the shutdown “embarrassing,” Kiley reiterated Tuesday that it was the “wrong decision” and threatens to prolong the impasse.

Rank-and-file members could add pressure to find “some sort of agreement” that would end the shutdown, Kiley said. “When people are just not here, and those conversations aren’t taking place,” he added, that allows the two sides’ rigid positions “to calcify.”

Kiley, who was in Washington Tuesday and appeared at an otherwise sparsely attended pro forma afternoon session, added that the no-show strategy also means House Republicans are “again falling behind” on the full-year spending bills that could be part of a lasting solution to the shutdown: “All the things we were supposed to be getting done and working on are not getting done.”

So far Johnson has shown no sign of budging. He reiterated on a private House Republican call Tuesday members are to stay in their districts on a 48-hour notice to return, and members of his circle have argued members such as Kiley are among a small minority of GOP dissidents.

But Kiley has emerged as an outspoken and fearless critic who has been willing to break ranks at a crucial moment for the GOP leadership. The 40-year-old former state legislator from the Sacramento area says he is simply trying to represent his constituents and push for a solution to the damaging showdown.

“You’re not going to, you know, persuade anyone to do things differently, to keep your feelings quiet,” he said, comparing Johnson’s closure of the House to the cancellation of the legislative session in California during the early Covid crisis.

A Johnson spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment on Kiley’s criticism.

Inside the House GOP, however, some see payback for what appears to be an existential threat to Kiley’s congressional career: the partisan redistricting fight now playing out across the country.

After President Donald Trump persuaded Texas Republicans to redraw their House maps ahead of the 2026 midterms, California Gov. Gavin Newsom launched a campaign to do the same in his own state. Should a Democratic-backed ballot measure pass next month, Kiley and several of his GOP colleagues in the state’s delegation are almost certain to be drawn out of their seats.

Kiley has urged Johnson and fellow House Republicans to pass legislation barring the redrawing of maps outside of the usual decennial Census-driven process. “Just because a party thinks that they can gain an advantage by redrawing lines all of a sudden doesn’t mean they should do it,” he said.

But Johnson has so far refused to act.

“It’s extremely disappointing to me that he did not do the right thing in advocating for our members and protecting the House as an institution,” Kiley said of Johnson, noting that the two have spoken about the topic.

Still, Kiley’s criticism of the speaker has gone well beyond the redistricting dispute and even the tactical decision to keep the House out of session — a move Johnson has undertaken in a bid to force Senate Democrats to pass the stopgap spending bill Republicans, including Kiley, voted for last month.

Kiley has also broken with the bulk of his Republican colleagues in saying the GOP should broach a deal with Democrats on extending key health insurance subsidies as a way to end the shutdown. That’s something Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune have explicitly ruled out as part of any shutdown solution.

“There is going to need to be a deal on that issue — I don’t think that there’s any doubt about that,” Kiley said of the subsidies, which are set to expire Dec. 31. “So insofar as there needs to be a deal anyway, if we can try to reach at least the beginnings of one now as a way to get out of the shutdown … I don’t know why we shouldn’t at least explore that possibility.”

He also waded into another sensitive matter by pushing for Johnson to swear in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.), whom Johnson has refused to seat until the shutdown ends. Once a member, she had pledged to be the 218th signature on a discharge petition forcing a floor vote to release Justice Department documents related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Kiley has not signed the discharge petition but said he would be “inclined” to vote for the bipartisan Epstein bill should it come up for a vote.

Democrats have dealt with internal dissension, as well: Rep. Jared Golden of Maine and Sens. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada have backed the GOP-led House stopgap bill. But none has been anywhere as vocal as Kiley in criticizing their leadership.

While GOP leaders have been keenly focused on presenting a united front against Democrats’ shutdown demands — and have placed calls to some unhappy members — Kiley said he hasn’t gotten similar pressure from party brass.

“No such requests,” he said, adding that they would not stop him from speaking out in any case.

Congress

DHS stopgap set for quick House action after Rules Committee vote

Published

10 hours ago

March 27, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The House Rules Committee advanced a measure Friday evening that would fund the entirety of the Homeland Security Department through May 22 — without setting up debate or a separate vote on the funding bill itself.

The panel, after a raucous meeting that devolved into shouting at multiple points, voted 8-4 on party lines to advance the measure to the floor.

The rule includes a “deem and pass” provision, a tactic that allows legislation to be passed by the House automatically once the rule itself is adopted. While there will be one hour of floor debate and a vote on the rule, there will not be a standalone House vote on the DHS spending bill.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) described himself as needing “a neck brace” from the whiplash of hearing Republicans argue for hours that the Senate’s early-morning voice vote on a different DHS funding measure was “shameful” for lack of transparency and accountability.

House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) accused the Senate of moving their bill “in the middle of the night, with the smell of jet fumes in the air,” lamenting that the House was left “to take it or leave it.”

House leaders, McGovern suggested, have chosen a similar path by fast-tracking the eight-week DHS stopgap.

“You’re in charge,” he told Rules Chair Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.). “You can do whatever the hell you want to do.”

Congress

Rand Paul weighs a 2028 presidential bid

Published

12 hours ago

March 27, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is considering a bid for president in 2028, as Republicans jockey for the future of the GOP post-Trump.

In a “CBS Sunday Morning” interview airing Sunday, a reporter asked Paul about an article that implied he would be running for president.

“We’re thinking about it,” Paul said. “I would say fifty-fifty,” adding that he would make a final decision after the midterm elections.

Paul ran for the Republican nomination for president in 2016 with a libertarianism-focused campaign but ultimately dropped out after a poor performance in the Iowa caucuses and a shortage of cash. He instead ran for reelection to the Senate.

Paul has had a complex relationship with his own party and with President Donald Trump, often finding himself the lone Republican on certain issues. More recently, he was the only Republican to support a joint resolution that would limit Trump’s war powers in Iran.

His father, former Rep. Ron Paul, also ran for president three times: first as a Libertarian in 1988, and twice as a Republican in 2008 and 2012.

Congress

‘Meltdown’: DHS shutdown set to drag on after House GOP rejects Senate deal

Published

13 hours ago

March 27, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Republicans moved Friday to further extend the six-week shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security by rejecting a Senate bill that would fund the vast majority of DHS agencies through September.

Instead, Speaker Mike Johnson proposed a temporary extension of DHS funding through May 22 — a plan that has uncertain prospects in the House and certainly won’t pass the Senate before the shutdown becomes the longest funding lapse in U.S. history Saturday.

But Johnson said House Republicans simply could not swallow the Senate bill, which omits funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as Border Patrol and some other parts of Customs and Border Protection.

“The Republicans are not going to be any part of any effort to reopen our borders or to stop immigration enforcement,” he said. “We are going to deport dangerous criminal illegal aliens because it is a basic function of the government. The Democrats fundamentally disagree.”

The move toward an eight-week stopgap creates a tactical gulf between Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who called an end to weeks of abortive bipartisan talks Thursday and pushed through the funding bill in hopes of tacking on funding later for ICE and CBP in a party-line budget reconciliation bill.

President Donald Trump has largely stayed out of the GOP infighting on Capitol Hill, keeping his criticism trained on Democrats. He ordered DHS to pay TSA officers Thursday as long security lines snarls more U.S. airports.

Johnson played down the split with his Senate counterpart, saying the Democratic leader there bore more blame for the impasse.

“I wouldn’t call John Thune the engineer of this,” he said. “Chuck Schumer and the Democrats in the Senate have forced this upon the Senate. I have to protect the House. … Our colleagues on this side understand this is not a game. We are not playing their games.”

Thune said early Friday morning he did not speak directly to Johnson in the final hours leading up to the Senate’s voice vote, but he said they had texted. He acknowledged he did not know in advance how the House would handle the Senate bill.

“Hopefully they’ll be around, and we can get at least a lot of the government opened up again, and then we’ll go from there,” he said.

Johnson made his game plan clear with House Republicans on a private call just minutes before addressing reporters in the Capitol, according to four people granted anonymity to describe the call. He warned that a failure to advance the short-term DHS stopgap would upend GOP plans for a reconciliation bill, the people said.

He suggested the Senate could quickly clear the stopgap measure once it passes the House. Most senators have left Washington for a recess running through April 13, but Johnson said the chamber could approve the House measure by unanimous consent at a planned pro forma session Monday.

But some House Republicans on the private call, including Rep. Carlos Gimenez of Florida, aired doubts it could pass the Senate — or even the House. Some fellow GOP centrists argued that the House should just swallow the Senate bill and end the standoff.

The House plan for a 60-day stopgap won a cold reception in the Senate, with even Republicans warning it will only prolong the partial government shutdown.

The plan is instead fueling frustration among both Republicans and Democrats who view House Republicans as essentially throwing temper tantrum. Three people granted anonymity to speak candidly each described the House as having a “meltdown.”

Schumer publicly slammed the House GOP plan Friday, saying it was “dead on arrival” across the Capitol, “and Republicans know it.”

A Senate GOP aide granted anonymity to speak candidly added that the quickest way to end the shutdown is for the House to pass the Senate bill.

Five people granted anonymity to comment on Senate dynamics said there was no possibility that Democrats would let the House GOP plan pass during the Senate’s brief pro forma sessions over the next two weeks. It would only take one Democratic senator to show up and object to any attempt to pass it.

The bill, according to the five people, also can’t get 60 votes in the Senate once the chamber returns. Democrats have previously rejected even shorter stopgaps, leaving some to privately question why House Republicans would ever think their plan would work.