Congress

Alex Padilla passes on California governor run

Published

11 months ago

November 4, 2025

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) announced Tuesday he will not run for governor in 2026.

Speaking from the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, Padilla said it was “with a full heart” and “more commitment than ever” that he was choosing to remain in Congress rather than seek the governor’s mansion.

“I choose not just to stay in the Senate. I choose to stay in this fight because the Constitution is worth fighting for. Our fundamental rights are worth fighting for. Our core values are worth fighting for. The American dream is worth fighting for,” Padilla said.

As California’s senior senator and a fixture in state politics, Padilla would have brought formidable assets to a governor race without a commanding front-runner. A concerted campaign to draft Padilla spoke to the unsettled state of the field after former Vice President Kamala Harris took a pass earlier this year and interest groups and elected officials hunted for an alternative to poll-leader Katie Porter, who is facing fallout from videos of her sparring with a reporter and berating a staffer.

Padilla had the potential to loosen Porter’s grip on the lead by entering a crowded field of contenders competing in the June primary for two general election spots, which go to the top vote-getters regardless of party.

But with his decision to bow out, the hunt for a Porter alternative will likely continue. Other potential entrants include Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Bay Area Democrat, and billionaire donor Tom Steyer, who has dipped a toe into the water with an ad blitz for term-limited Gov. Gavin Newsom’s gerrymandering ballot initiative.

Sacramento’s political class eagerly greeted the prospect of Padilla running, seeing him as a known quantity and a person with whom they could work. Many of the elected officials, interest groups and political operatives who steer money and endorsements are wary of Porter’s progressive record, her inexperience with state politics and her reputation for abrasiveness — the last of which has dogged Porter’s current campaign.

Padilla has spent years climbing the ladder of California politics, ascending from the Los Angeles City Council to the Legislature to the secretary of state’s office. Newsom, his longtime ally, appointed him to the Senate in late 2020 after Harris vacated her seat to become vice president.

Congress

Why the Senate might not solve Jon Husted’s data center problem

Published

34 minutes ago

September 16, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Ohio Sen. Jon Husted is drowning in political attacks centered on his past support for data centers. A potential life preserver could end up just out of reach.

The House is expected to vote Wednesday on legislation that aims to compel technology companies to cover utility costs associated with data center buildouts. And Husted, who is seeking election in November to complete the final two years of the term he was appointed to, is trying to get his fellow senators to quickly follow suit.

But getting the Senate to leap into action this month is far from straightforward. Assuming the House acts on the measure Wednesday as planned, putting it on President Donald Trump’s desk before senators leave town for a final campaign sprint would require Husted to convince all 99 of his colleagues to agree to a quick vote — or even to let it pass without one.

There are already signs it could be a big ask, especially from Democrats who are already skeptical of the House bill and aren’t eager to give Husted a leg up in his race against former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, either.

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), who has offered his own bill aimed at preventing data centers from shifting energy costs to consumers, called the bill Husted is backing a “fig leaf” in a Tuesday interview.

“I think it’s a very symbolic piece of legislation,” said Heinrich, the top Democrat on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “I would like to see something done that actually has some teeth to protect consumers.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was noncommittal Tuesday when asked at a news conference about artificial intelligence legislation and if Democrats could support an idea like Husted’s bill, known as the Ratepayer Protection Act. The New York Democrat said that there were “many different ways to approach AI” but they wouldn’t get done unless it was on a bipartisan basis.

While Husted’s bill has one cosponsor — a fellow Republican, Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama — the House bill has multiple Democratic cosponsors and passed unanimously out of the Energy and Commerce Committee in July. House Republican leaders are so confident of bipartisan approval that they’re bringing the bill to the floor under a fast-track process requiring a two-thirds-majority vote.

Husted insisted to reporters Tuesday that he was not connecting his push for data center legislation with the political headwinds he’s facing back in Ohio.

“I don’t look at it in those terms,” Husted said. “I just think that it’s something that is just the right thing to do. … They need to pay their own way, and not pass their cost on.”

But with Brown hammering him on the Ohio airwaves as the “face of data centers,” Husted is facing an acute need to reassure voters on the issue. The Senate GOP campaign arm warned in a memo last month that data centers are “the anchor hanging around Husted’s neck” and that if Husted loses it could have negative consequences for the industry.

Getting the Ratepayer Protection Act to Trump’s desk would give Husted and other Republicans a key talking point to raise in TV ads and debate appearances as many acknowledge that the growing backlash from voters over data centers is becoming a grave political liability.

If Husted can’t get an across-the-board agreement to hold a vote, he could go to the floor and try to pass his bill by unanimous consent, but any one senator would be able to block his attempt.

Asked whether he would object to such an effort, Heinrich said he hadn’t considered it yet, but added that “given the pressures consumers are under right now, they deserve something more real.”

Schumer helped recruit Brown into the race against Husted, and the former senator has been running ads against Husted for months over his support for data centers as lieutenant governor.

“He led the path to bring data centers to Ohio and gave billions of tax dollars to make it happen,” the narrator says in one Brown campaign ad from earlier this month.

A spokesperson for Husted’s Senate office said in a statement that Husted has “always believed that it should be up to the local communities whether or not they want new data centers.”

Husted joined Trump in March for the signing of a “ratepayer protection pledge” aimed at defusing the issue for Republicans. The Husted spokesperson said his bill “simply codifies this pledge, and what he has always firmly believed: tech companies should be held accountable, and local ratepayers should not have to pay for new data centers.”

Democrats view Ohio as one of their best pickup opportunities on the Senate map, with political prognosticators viewing the contest as a tossup. If Husted is able to keep his seat in a state Trump won by more than 11 points in 2024, it would be a boon for Republicans’ fight to hold onto the majority.

The data center bill is not the only way Republicans could use the Senate floor to boost Husted, who was appointed last year by Gov. Mike DeWine to fill the seat vacated by JD Vance when he became vice president.

Two GOP senators granted anonymity to speak candidly said they believed a Tuesday vote on cryptocurrency regulation, for instance, was designed to help Husted. Democrats blocked the bill from advancing, and Republicans are hoping the crypto industry spends heavily in Ohio to defeat Brown, a former Senate Banking chair — as they did in 2024.

Republicans are also discussing if they can bring up a House-passed bill cracking down on lawmaker stock trading that also has voter ID language attached to it. Husted has pushed voter ID legislation in the Senate.

Asked about the data center bill Tuesday, Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso said in an interview that “we’ll see how it goes there and get it over here.”

Unprompted, he added, “Since you mentioned Senator Husted, I would also like to do the stock trading ban, which also requires a mandatory showing of voter ID.”

Husted said that he believed his data center bill is “broadly supported” and that he’s hoping a strong House vote will “give us some good momentum to get it done in the Senate.”

But Senate Majority Leader John Thune cautioned that it would take buy-in from all 100 senators to move it quickly.

“We’ll see what the options are over here,” Thune said in an interview. “He obviously has the option to try and ask [for unanimous consent] to get it done.”

Anthony Cruz contributed to this report.

Congress

College sports bill moves forward in Senate with Democratic support

Published

11 hours ago

September 15, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

A group of Senate Democrats on Tuesday voted with most Republicans after months of painstaking negotiations to help advance a sweeping college athletics bill.

An initial procedural vote on the measure led by Commerce Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and ranking member Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) moved forward on a 74-24 vote, despite opposition on both sides of the aisle. The move tees up more floor debate and a final passage vote before lawmakers leave to campaign for the midterms.

Cantwell said that even though the bill wasn’t perfect, it would help ensure the name, image and likeness rights of student athletes, among other protections.

“I will not let the perfect be the enemy of the essential,” Cantwell said on the floor ahead of the vote. “This is the last best chance to save college sports and put HBCUs at the table where the future gets decided,” she said, referring to historically Black colleges and universities.

The chamber is expected to stay for the entirety of its planned three-week session now that senators opened a path to take up the bill, according to four Senate aides granted anonymity to discuss planning. Fast-tracking the legislation would depend on a deal between all 100 senators, which would require overcoming holdouts’ opposition.

Supporters of the bill behind the scenes have been fielding concerns from senators and a coalition of sports, civil rights and labor groups who’ve criticized the measure’s planned regulation of the multibillion-dollar industry.

Democrats like Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) spent weeks trying to convince his colleagues to “step back and oppose” the bill in its current form, saying in a press conference with AFL-CIO this week it would “preserve a system of exploitation that is damaging our athletes.”

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who voted “no,” told reporters Tuesday the bill “falls way short.”

“It really jeopardizes college athletes’ health and safety. It gives broad-based antitrust exemption to the NCAA and gets very little back from it,” Booker added, referring to the National Collegiate Athletic Association. “It is a bill that really, unfortunately, as one of the handful of college football players in this place, it does not cure what are some of the biggest things that are really threatening college players.”

Some Democrats who supported the bill, including New Mexico Sen. Ben Ray Luján, cited concerns from student athletes and coaches in their home states as the reason why.

“Student athletes and others wanted to make sure that the conferences that they were playing for were getting treated in a fair way,” he said. “Go talk to athletes from our schools and across the country and see what this means to them, not just athletes from the super conferences around America.”

The legislation has the backing of President Donald Trump, major sports conferences like the Big Ten and Southeastern, student sports organizations and HBCUs.

Several Republicans who were on the fence earlier about the bill, including Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), were convinced to support it after Cruz added language to clarify that it would not preempt state laws on transgender athletes’ participation on women’s sports teams.

Others Republicans like Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) said he couldn’t support advancing the measure because “there’s too much government involvement in it.”

Congress

Rebel Democrats again help House GOP advance floor agenda

Published

12 hours ago

September 15, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

A pair of House Democrats voted to advance a slate of GOP bills in a procedural vote that was otherwise on track to fail — the second time they have crossed party lines to help out House GOP leaders in recent weeks.

Reps. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington and Jared Golden of Maine previously aided Speaker Mike Johnson earlier this month when they voted to advance a “rule” resolution that teed up a Golden-authored measure aiding lobstermen. The move sparked outrage among many of their Democratic colleagues and created a touchy situation for Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

But the dustup does not appear to have fazed Golden and Gluesenkamp Perez, who again joined with Republicans Tuesday to set up votes on bills that would hand President Donald Trump new authorities to sanction Russia’s trading partners as well as measures rolling back some EPA regulations.

The vote was 214-211, with two Republicans voting “no” — Reps. Andy Harris of Maryland and Ralph Norman of South Carolina. Several other Republicans, including Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee, Andrew Clyde of Georgia and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania voted “yes” only after extended talks with House GOP leaders.

The last time House Republicans adopted a rule without help from Democrats was in July.

Speaker Mike Johnson, when asked about Democrats helping him adopt a rule twice this month, said he “would have gotten the votes.”

“You saw me work it there at the end,” Johnson said. “We would have had the votes necessary, but we had some discussion about other measures that people want to consider, so just worked through the process.”

After Gluesenkamp Perez and Golden voted with the GOP earlier this month, Jeffries promised a “serious response,” but he later indicted that there would be no public consequences following private conversations with the lawmakers. Golden is retiring after his term ends, and Gluesenkamp Perez is seeking reelection in a district won by Trump in 2024.

Harris announced before the vote that he was introducing a bill to tackle affordability by suspending the federal gas tax, suggesting he may have withheld his vote in a bid to secure floor consideration.

“Let’s put my bill on the floor and PASS IT,” Harris said in a post on X.