Congress
House to return to laundry list of controversies after 7-week hiatus
The House is set to return to work Wednesday after a staggering 54 days out of session. Ending the record government shutdown will be the least of Speaker Mike Johnson’s problems.
Tensions have been running high for weeks over Johnson’s decision to shut down the House for the duration of the shutdown, sparking intense criticism from Democrats and private alarm inside pockets of the House GOP.
With members now returning to Washington after spending nearly two months dispersed across the country, he is faced with jump-starting dormant committee work, tackling a looming health care deadline and resolving long-brewing internal conflicts over the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and congressional stock-trading — if he can reopen the government first.
Asked Monday if he had the votes to pass the Senate-negotiated package, Johnson replied, “I think we will,” as he dashed into his office.
Johnson is already leaning heavily on President Donald Trump to get his conference behind the funding package. He made clear on a private call with House Republicans Monday morning that Trump wants the government reopened as soon as possible, and Trump signaled later in the day that he backs the deal.
GOP hard-liners who have traditionally opposed spending bills appear to be falling in line, arguing that the package constitutes a major win because it preempts a year-end omnibus bill that would fund the whole federal government through September and does not extend expiring Affordable Care Act insurance subsidies, as Democrats had demanded.
Even the famously intransigent House Freedom Caucus “is cool” with the package, according to one Republican in the group who was granted anonymity to discuss internal dynamics. Their support solves one of Johnson’s biggest headaches and puts the bill on a glide path to passage, with Trump ready to cajole any other holdouts.
The bigger challenge might be getting members to Washington for a final vote. They’re likely to face massive travel disruptions this week with FAA flight limits prompting airlines to trim thousands of domestic flights. Johnson urged GOP members Monday to begin traveling to Washington as soon as possible. Chiefs of staff also received a notice Monday morning for lawmakers to return to Washington by Tuesday evening, and be ready to vote Wednesday.
Once lawmakers arrive and reopen the government, Johnson will then have to confront other long-simmering controversies.
One issue he plans to confront immediately Wednesday, before the first House votes, is swearing in Democratic Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva seven weeks after she won the special election to fill her late father’s Arizona House seat, according to five people granted anonymity to discuss his plans ahead of an official announcement.
But that in turn will jump-start another long-running GOP political hassle: Grijalva says she will be the 218th and decisive signature on a discharge petition to compel the release of the “Epstein files” — records held by the Justice Department that Trump has opposed sharing. That will start a cascade of legislative steps requiring the measure to be brought to the floor by early December.
Republican leadership has taken pains to avoid Epstein-related votes, which have generated fissures inside the GOP, but Johnson has said he won’t seek to block the discharge petition.
Separately, many members of both parties are pushing Johnson to advance a contentious bill that would ban lawmakers from trading individual stocks. Appropriators will also face the daunting task of drafting full-year spending bills for most of the federal government ahead of the new Jan. 30 shutdown deadline. And lawmakers on other committees will be forced to catch up on weeks of missed hearings and markups, with GOP leaders privately warning members that many late nights of work are in store upon their return.
The toughest internal battle Johnson will have to confront centers on health care. A brewing conflict over the expiring Obamacare subsidies — which the speaker was mostly able to keep under wraps with members out of town — is now set to spill out into the open in the coming days.
On one side, scores of Republicans are dead-set against extending the subsidies that have been at the center of the shutdown. On the other side, Johnson is facing a handful of unhappy GOP members, including some who are privately considering backing any discharge petition to sidestep Johnson and force a vote on an extension before the Obamacare tax credits expire Dec. 31.
“We will find a way,” said one House Republican who supports an extension and was granted anonymity to speak frankly about internal dynamics. Johnson told House Republicans on their Monday call that he is not committing to hold any vote on extending the subsidies. Asked later by reporters, he said only that there would be “a deliberative process.”
Across the aisle, he will be facing down over 200 angry Democrats who are already strategizing about how to turn their disappointment over the shutdown’s apparent anticlimactic ending into political advantage.
House Democrats will likely be unable to block the legislation to reopen the government this week, and many are fuming about what happened in the Senate.
Gathering on a private call Monday afternoon for their first party discussion since the Senate deal came together, members vented their anger about the eight Democratic and independent senators who broke ranks to advance the funding bill, according to five people granted anonymity to describe the discussion.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries took steps to cool the internal tensions, offering support to his Senate counterpart, Chuck Schumer, amid a fiery backlash Monday.
“Leader Schumer and Senate Democrats over the last seven weeks have waged a valiant fight on behalf of the American people, and I’m not going to explain what a handful of Senate Democrats have decided to do,” he told reporters Monday.
He and other Democrats are trying to refocus attention on extending the health care subsidies, with Jeffries telling fellow Democrats on the private call he would pursue all options to force action, including a new discharge petition, the people said. Democrats believe enough House Republicans are willing to cross Johnson and circumvent his leadership, though the House might not be able to act quickly enough to prevent a massive hike in Americans’ health insurance bills in the coming months.
Democratic leaders are expecting their members to vote en masse against the Senate deal and are expected to formally recommend a “no” vote. But one centrist House Democrat granted anonymity to comment on internal discussions said at least a handful of colleagues are expected to vote for the funding package this week.
A spokesperson for the only Democrat to vote for a GOP-led stopgap spending bill ahead of the shutdown — retiring Maine Rep. Jared Golden — said his “position on using a government shutdown as a legislative strategy has been clear and has not changed.”
Golden also said he has “spent months having bipartisan conversations about how to build the support necessary to extend the ACA credits” and “looks forward to continuing those conversations with his colleagues in the days to come.”
Congress
House Democrats once again left complaining about a Senate spending deal
For the third time in less than a year, a spending deal brokered in the Senate has House Democrats feeling left out — and grumbling about their counterparts across the Capitol.
This time, the agreement between President Donald Trump and Senate Democratic leaders would spare the vast majority of federal agencies from an extended shutdown — funding most of them through the end of the fiscal year in September while punting Homeland Security funding only through Feb. 13.
But to Democrats up in arms over Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda, that’s still 10 days of DHS funding too many — assuming the deal passes the House as planned Tuesday — leaving them to vent once again about the other chamber.
“There are some Senate Democrats who always signal nervousness and are so reluctant to be strong,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.). “We end up having to answer for what they won’t do, and it can be very frustrating.”
“We are far closer to the people,” said Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), adding that it’s “critically important that House members be brought in” during negotiations over immigration enforcement constraints considering ICE, Border Patrol and other agencies are deployed in their districts.
The interchamber tensions between Democrats are becoming a regular feature of funding fights in the second Trump term. Lawmakers, strategists and voters alike exploded in anger last March when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and a handful of colleagues allowed a spending package to move forward amid the Elon Musk-led DOGE assault on federal agencies. In November, tempers again flared when a handful of Senate Democrats joined with Republicans to end a record 43-day shutdown.
This time, the situation is more nuanced. At stake is $1.2 trillion in full-year funding that was negotiated on a bipartisan basis; Democrats generally support the vast majority of the agreement. But the inclusion of the DHS money has been a sore spot — especially after the killing last month of two U.S. citizens by federal agents in Minneapolis.
A version of the DHS bill passed in the House before the Jan. 24 killing of Alex Pretti garnered only seven Democratic votes. Senate Democrats immediately declared a no-go on full-year funding for the department after the incident, and Schumer and Trump negotiated a two-week punt to allow for further talks.
Fewer than half of Senate Democratic Caucus members ultimately ended up voting for the deal, however, and support among House Democrats is considerably more scant.
Asked if House Democrats were sufficiently read in on the Trump-Schumer deal, Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar said “no” but added, “I don’t think that that’s surprising.”
“But I think the split among senators was kind of surprising,” the California lawmaker added. “And so … we’ll see what happens.”
The spending package is headed to the floor Tuesday, where it remains an open question if House Republicans will be able to unite on a key test vote. Late last week — facing dissension in his own ranks over having to pass a bill with only temporary DHS funding — Speaker Mike Johnson entertained using a bipartisan fast-track process.
But members of Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ leadership circle were caught unaware — with some downright livid — at Johnson’s confidence that he could pass the bill under that process — which would require a two-thirds-majority vote, meaning at least 70 Democrats would be needed to get it across the line.
Such a move generally requires tacit agreement from minority party leaders to supply the votes. But Republicans at that point hadn’t asked their Democratic counterparts for a more formal private count of how many Democrats might support the measure, according to three people granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.
Jeffries told Johnson just hours later on a private call that Democratic leadership would not commit to delivering the required votes for a fast-track vote, forcing Johnson to gather GOP votes to jump through a procedural hurdle first. Johnson has since accused Democrats of “playing games” with the shutdown-ending package.
Those interparty antics have helped deflect attention from internal Democratic tensions over the Senate-brokered funding deal, with Jeffries playing down any such rift Monday.
“I speak regularly with Leader Schumer, and I speak regularly with Mike Johnson,” he said when asked if House Democrats were properly consulted in the funding package negotiations. “There’s no daylight between House and Senate Democrats on accomplishing the objective, which is dramatic reform of ICE.”
Jeffries opposed the prior package, with full-year DHS funding, but would not say Monday how he intended to vote on the revised bill with the short-term stopgap.
Schumer, for his part, said he spoke with Jeffries during the negotiations that erupted in the Senate following Pretti’s killing. He said after the Senate vote Friday night that Jeffries had agreed on limiting DHS funding to Feb. 13.
“This bill was negotiated by … [Senate Majority LeaderJohn] Thune and me,” Schumer said. “But I’ve talked to Hakeem Jeffries. For instance, we talked about how long a [stopgap] should be, because we wanted to limit it greatly.”
Asked about Schumer’s comment Monday, Jeffries said, “I think what we made clear to the Senate is that the original three-month proposal was completely and totally unacceptable.”
Behind the scenes, Schumer told the White House and congressional Republicans last week that they would need to talk to Jeffries because the bill was going back to the House, according to a person granted anonymity to disclose a private conversation.
If Republicans can get the bill over the procedural hurdle Tuesday, more Democrats are expected to support it than the seven who backed the previous version. But the party remained sharply divided Monday.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Appropriations Committee Democrat, said Monday she would support the bill on the floor, while another panel leader, Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern of the Rules Committee, said he would oppose it.
“I will not vote for business as usual while masked agents break into people’s homes without a judicial warrant in violation of the Fourth Amendment,” McGovern said.
Others declined to forecast their plans, including members of the Democratic leadership team. Rep. Ted Lieu of California, the caucus vice chair, said he planned to attend Tuesday morning’s caucus meeting before deciding.
Several Democrats said they do not expect party leaders to formally whip votes for or against the funding package, with some acknowledging that it would not be an easy decision for members who support the vast majority of the funding bill and also don’t want to see noncontroversial DHS agencies such as FEMA and TSA shut down.
And blaming the Senate for having to take a tough note, one Democrat noted, is hardly new.
“I’ve been here long enough that people always complain about the other chamber, so that’s always an easy out,” Aguilar said.
Jordain Carney contributed to this report.
Congress
House Republicans eye next week for housing bill vote
House leadership is eyeing the week of Feb. 9 for a vote on a bipartisan housing package, according to four people with direct knowledge of the planning.
Senior lawmakers have also been mulling whether to consider the widely supported bill under suspension of House rules, which would expedite passage of the legislation, said three of the people who were granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
However, plans for the bill are not locked in and could be subject to change as the House deals with a partial government shutdown.
The Housing in the 21st Century Act, which overwhelmingly advanced through the House Financial Services Committee in December, is part of a push by Congress to pass legislation that could address a growing housing affordability crisis. The bill includes 25 provisions that aim to increase the housing supply, modernize local development and rural housing programs, expand manufactured and affordable housing, protect borrowers and those utilizing federal housing programs, and enhance oversight of housing providers.
House Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) said Friday that he’s pushing for the Housing for the 21st Century Act to receive a floor vote expeditiously.
”I hope that that bill can come to the House floor in just a few days. I really am pushing for that, I think it’s the right decision,” Hill said on Bloomberg Radio.
The Senate’s housing bill, the ROAD to Housing Act, passed the upper chamber as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act but may be put to a separate floor vote. If the House is able to pass its own version by a wide margin before the Senate, it could have additional leverage for negotiations with the upper chamber for a final bill. Hill and other House Republicans have said the Senate bill, which received overwhelming bipartisan support in the Senate Banking Committee, has a number of provisions that would not be acceptable among House GOP members.
Congress
Bill and Hillary Clinton now agree to testify before Congress
Bill and Hillary Clinton have agreed to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee as part of the panel’s investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, an Oversight aide said Monday evening.
It’s a remarkable reversal for the former president and secretary of state, who were adamant they would defy committee-issued subpoenas and risk imprisonment by the Trump Justice Department as the House prepared to vote Wednesday to hold them both in contempt of Congress.
After both skipped their scheduled depositions earlier this year, the Oversight Committee voted on a bipartisan basis in January to approve contempt measures for each of them.
Although both have said they had no knowledge of Epstein’s crimes, they have maintained that the subpoenas were not tied to a legitimate legislative purpose, rendering them invalid. They also complained the GOP-led exercise was designed to embarrass and put them in jail.
It is not immediately clear when they will appear and if the House will continue to pursue the contempt votes.
-
The Dictatorship12 months agoLuigi Mangione acknowledges public support in first official statement since arrest
-
The Dictatorship5 months agoMike Johnson sums up the GOP’s arrogant position on military occupation with two words
-
Politics12 months agoFormer ‘Squad’ members launching ‘Bowman and Bush’ YouTube show
-
Politics12 months agoBlue Light News’s Editorial Director Ryan Hutchins speaks at Blue Light News’s 2025 Governors Summit
-
The Dictatorship12 months agoPete Hegseth’s tenure at the Pentagon goes from bad to worse
-
Politics12 months agoFormer Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron launches Senate bid
-
Uncategorized1 year ago
Bob Good to step down as Freedom Caucus chair this week
-
Politics10 months agoDemocrat challenging Joni Ernst: I want to ‘tear down’ party, ‘build it back up’


