Congress

Why Senate Republicans aren’t uniting behind a health care plan

Published

11 months ago

December 9, 2025

Senate Republicans have no shortage of health care plans. The challenge is getting all 53 of them to rally behind one.

Three days before a high-profile vote on a Democratic proposal to extend expiring Obamacare subsidies, GOP senators are nowhere near coalescing behind any single alternative that could be put up alongside it. Instead, Republican leaders appear happy allowing their members to freelance, even as Democrats and some in their own ranks fume at the lack of clear direction.

For Republicans, the risk of proceeding Thursday with a side-by-side vote is clear. While Democrats say they will have their entire 47-member caucus behind the three-year extension, any GOP plan right now is likely to fall well short of complete unity — and highlight the divisions in their party.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune called the upcoming vote on Democrats’ plan “a political messaging exercise,” one he agreed to last month as part of a deal to end the 47-day government shutdown. He didn’t commit to putting up a GOP counteroffer for a vote.

“I don’t think they’re serious about wanting to do a deal yet, so I think that may be what this week is about,” Thune told reporters Monday. “But we’ll see from there if there is a genuine interest in trying to do something.”

GOP senators are expected to further discuss their options at a closed-door lunch Tuesday and make a final decision about their posture. But, according to three Republican aides granted anonymity to comment on internal conference dynamics, leaders are not currently expected to offer an alternative for a vote Thursday.

One of the aides said Republicans will be prepared to make the case they have plenty of ideas and are ready to talk with Democrats once they move off a proposal that won’t get the 60 votes needed to advance.

But some Republicans want their leaders to put some concrete alternatives forward as more than 20 million Americans face the loss of enhanced Obamacare tax credits that were implemented as a Covid relief measure under President Joe Biden in 2021 and later extended through 2025. Without them, many families could see premiums rise by $1,000 a month or more.

“What signal would that send if Republicans say, ‘Yeah, we’re going to say no to the Democrats’ plan, but we’re not going to offer anything?’” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said. “The message that will send is, good luck to the American people, and we don’t really care.”

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said in an interview that simply standing aside while Democrats vote to extend the subsidies would be “a big mistake.”

“A lot of my colleagues, I think, will be very upset if we don’t put something up,” he said.

But there are multiple competing proposals that are favored by subsets of the Senate GOP. Some of them include shorter extensions of the expiring subsidies. Others seek to replace them with new frameworks, generally involving giving Americans cash in the form of health savings accounts to help underwrite premiums and other costs.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) is among those pushing for a clean break from the Affordable Care Act subsidy framework that reflects “what we believe in” as free-market-oriented Republicans. “I always think it’s good to have an alternative,” he said in an interview.

But Thune praised another proposal being circulated by Sens. Mike Crapo of Idaho and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who chair the health-oriented Finance and HELP committees, respectively.

Their proposal, released Monday, would expand the use of health savings accounts and direct funding toward them without extending the enhanced Obamacare subsidies.

Cassidy said Monday that it is a “leadership decision” if his proposal gets a vote Thursday. Thune took steps Monday night to make the bill available for a vote later this week, as Republicans try to keep options on the table ahead of Tuesday’s lunch.

But Thune also acknowledged some of his members have other ideas centered on extending the enhanced subsidies with a new income cap and other eligibility restrictions. Republican Sens. Bernie Moreno of Ohio and Susan Collins of Maine, for instance, propose to extend the expiring subsidies for two years with income cap restrictions and minimum premium payments.

That proposal won some Democratic interest Monday from Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the No. 2 party leader, who called it “encouraging” and “in the ballpark” of a workable solution — though he cautioned he hadn’t seen the details.

“It’s not crazy,” Durbin said. “Let’s have a conversation.”

The Senate GOP is straining to formulate a path forward as House Republicans race to come up with their own plan in hopes of putting some health care legislation up for a vote next week before lawmakers break for the holidays — and the enhanced subsidies expire, returning them to the original levels as passed in the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

House GOP leaders still need to make key decisions, including if they try to assemble one bill or put up a suite of bills for members to pick and choose from. But they, too, are under pressure from a slice of members to embrace an extension of the subsidies — even as most in the party are happy to see them expire.

President Donald Trump hasn’t put forward his own framework, which could have helped rally the disparate factions of his party on Capitol Hill. And Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer hammered Republicans Monday, saying that they “have no plan.”

“The question Republicans face this week is very simple: Will they support our bill and lower people’s premiums or will they block our bill and send premiums through the roof?” Schumer said from the Senate floor Monday.

While the Democratic proposal is expected to fall well short of the necessary 60 votes, a handful of Republicans haven’t said yet how they will vote. Hawley, for instance, said Monday “everything is on the table.”

“What I’m not going to do is do nothing,” he said.

It’s likely Thursday’s vote won’t be the last word on health care this Congress. Thune left the door open to further bipartisan negotiations, and there’s some hope on both sides of the aisle that a failed vote — or votes — could in fact lend new momentum to the talks. Lawmakers are increasingly eyeing Jan. 30, the next government funding deadline, as the real cutoff to land a health care deal.

But getting to that point will require Democrats to compromise and Republicans to get together behind a plan of some kind. Asked Monday if his ranks were united or divided on health care, Thune acknowledged reality for a party that has struggled on the issue for decades.

“I think we have people in different camps, as you would expect,” he said.

Calen Razor and Benjamin Guggenheim contributed to this report.

Congress

Gallego plans final midterm travel around Latino enclaves

Published

2 hours ago

October 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego has been banging the drum for Democrats to pay attention to the disenfranchised, working-class moderate Latino voters that helped push him to a statewide win in 2024 — the same bloc that helped boost President Donald Trump back to the White House.

Gallego has carved a lane as one of the party’s loudest voices on the future of the Latino coalition. He hasn’t shied away from carrying that message everywhere — and it’s one that could serve his admitted 2028 ambitions well.

Now Gallego’s kicking off a final push across several key gubernatorial and House battlegrounds, according to details shared exclusively with Blue Light News. And he’s tracing a map of where Latino voters could be most critical for Democrats’ path back to power.

“They’ve been left behind in the past by Democrats,” Gallego said in an interview. “Now they feel they’re left behind by Donald Trump.”

Gallego is heading to Las Vegas on Monday to campaign with Democrat Aaron Ford, one of the party’s top targets to flip a governor’s seat. Nevada’s a state where Latinos make up nearly 1 in 5 voters, with working-class roots and the major influence of groups like the Culinary Union — not to mention a key presidential swing state and an early one on the Democratic nominating calendar.

Gallego’s planning a canvass launch with the Culinary Union, a hit on Spanish radio and a roundtable with Latino veterans. On Tuesday, Gallego will be in Reno alongside Democrat Teresa Benitez-Thompson, who’s looking to beat Republican David Flippo in Nevada’s 2nd.

On Wednesday, the senator plans to travel to San Antonio to support Katy Padilla Stout in Texas’ vacant 23rd District, the red rural seat formerly occupied by GOP Rep. Tony Gonzales, and then to El Paso for his second appearance this cycle with Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Gina Hinojosa.

Rounding out the critical Latino voter races, Gallego’s final stop Thursday will be in Miami, stumping for Democrat Eliott Rodriguez, who’s taking on GOP Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar.

Gallego wants to build on the momentum from last year’s Miami mayor’s race, which he said showed Democrats could regain ground with Latinos, along with Virginia and New Jersey’s gubernatorial contests. “There was just this knee-jerk reaction that somehow the Latinos were responsible for 2024, and therefore we shouldn’t reward them with any type of investment,” Gallego said. But after those race results came in, “people finally realized like, ‘Oh God, there is something there.’”

Is this a kickstarter for Gallego’s own future?

The senator dodged on whether his final midterms swing is laying the groundwork for a 2028 bid. “We’re only focused on 2026,” he said. But he’s touting the more than half a million dollars he’s put behind Democratic candidates and committees, and Gallego’s visits will directly follow Trump’s rally in south Texas tomorrow and his planned trip to Florida later this week.

Congress

Asian voters are swinging toward Talarico in Texas. Dems still say more outreach is needed.

Published

3 hours ago

October 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Some Democrats want their party to focus on winning back Asian American voters after they swung toward President Donald Trump in 2024. A new poll out of Texas may help their case.

The October poll, conducted by a University of California-San Diego pollster and commissioned by the left-leaning Asian Americans Texas Action Fund, found Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico leading GOP nominee Ken Paxton by nearly 17 points with Asian American and Pacific Islander voters. But, in the closing stretch of the midterms, the vast majority of respondents said they hadn’t seen direct engagement from either campaign.

More than 70% of Asian American voters said they hadn’t been directly contacted by the Talarico campaign, and 81% said they hadn’t been contacted by Paxton’s campaign, according to the findings, obtained by Blue Light News.

“After this season in Texas, it’ll be undeniable that Asian Americans are that margin of victory electorate that all campaigns need to pay attention to,” said Stephanie Cho, the executive director of Asian Americans Texas Action Fund.

Texas has been hit particularly hard by the Trump administration’s immigration agenda and the economic turmoil of rising prices. GOP statewide candidate Bo French’s xenophobic post about a group of Asian American students attending a University of Texas football game also thrust racial politics back into the spotlight.

Democrats have focused on making inroads with Hispanic voters that moved right in 2024: Counties that were more than 25 percent Hispanic swung toward Trump by 10 points compared to the previous presidential election, according to a New York Times analysis. But data shows Asian Americans have similarly slipped away from Democrats. Exit polls show Asian American voters swung toward Trump by 12 points, from 2020 to 2024.

Lawmakers, including Democratic Sens. Andy Kim (N.J.) and Tammy Duckworth (Ill.) have hit the campaign trail for various candidates, hoping to energize AAPI communities.

Kim, who appeared with Talarico at an event in September, told POLITICO at the time that AAPI voters “don’t feel like they’re being courted, or being targeted, or being sought after.”

“We started to take the Asian Americans for granted and did not understand some of the divisions that occur within the community,” Duckworth said in an interview. Earlier this month, she was in Atlanta holding a forum about the importance of the Asian American vote with Sen. Jon Ossoff and a fundraiser for AAPI Victory Fund, a PAC that boosts Asian American candidates.

The new poll, which surveyed 1,242 registered AAPI voters from Oct. 4 to 13 and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points, also found that two-thirds of respondents think Talarico needs to do more to earn their vote — that’s virtually unchanged from the percentage who said this back in June. The numbers are worse for Paxton, with nearly 77% of voters saying the Republican needs to do more to earn their vote, a 7-point increase from June.

Talarico’s campaign spokesperson JT Ennis said in a statement that Talarico “has fought tirelessly for Texas’ AAPI community in the Texas House, and will build on that record in the U.S. Senate.”

“He has spoken out against anti-Asian and Islamophobic hate, celebrated cultural events and hosted community engagements with AAPI Texans, and is endorsed by AAPI candidates across Texas,” Ennis said.

A spokesperson for Paxton didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Congress

Jeffries edges closer to Hegseth impeachment as he eyes the gavel

Published

4 hours ago

October 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries inched closer to calling for embattled Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s impeachment over the weekend, pledging to take action if President Donald Trump doesn’t remove him.

“It means that we’re going to hold him accountable in the same way that we held Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem accountable,” Jeffries said to MS NOW on Saturday. “And Pete Hegseth needs to be pushed aside by the president, or we’re going to have to deal with that situation if he is not.”

The House minority leader, however, stopped short of explicitly committing to launching or supporting an impeachment of Hegseth, who has drawn ire from lawmakers in both parties.

The House could vote on articles of impeachment filed by the outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) as soon as lawmakers return to Washington after the midterms. Asked about his support, Jeffries said he will “act consistently” with his repeated calls for Trump to fire Hegseth.

Massie pledged to reintroduce articles of impeachment against Hegseth when Congress returns to Washington in a post on the social media site X on Monday morning.

Jeffries’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Democrats, who are favored to take control of the House after the midterms, have vowed to go after Trump officials and allies using their oversight powers. The Pentagon has been a particularly prominent target, including over the war in Iran and allegations of war crimes, scrutiny of Pentagon business dealings and the removal of senior military officers.

“Hegseth and crew better buckle up and lawyer up because we are coming at them full on,” Rep. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.) told Blue Light News last month. “It’s incredibly aggressive oversight because this is by far the most corrupt and least transparent Pentagon, I think, we’ve ever had.”

The secretary is also in hot water with the American public. Nearly two-thirds of 2024 Democratic voters and 20% of Republicans support his impeachment, according to data from The POLITICO Poll released earlier this month. Even 18% of MAGA Republicans say they favor Hegseth’s ouster.

“Hakeem Jeffries cheered on Joe Biden as he prioritized DEI and woke ideology at the Pentagon,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement. “Secretary Hegseth is doing a great job leading the Pentagon — and the results of Operations Epic Fury, Absolute Resolve, and Midnight Hammer [speak] for themselves.”

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Leo Shane III contributed to this report.