Congress

Capitol agenda: A crypto titan flexes in the Senate

Published

8 months ago

January 15, 2026

Tim Scott is facing a crypto calamity.

Landmark digital asset legislation that the Senate Banking chair hoped to advance out of committee Thursday is in extreme jeopardy after one of the industry’s most influential executives announced his opposition Wednesday, setting off a scramble in the Senate and the White House to rescue the bill.

Scott has now postponed the markup, and it’s unclear where he goes from here.

The last-minute backlash is crypto’s biggest flex yet on Capitol Hill, after the industry’s largest players doled out more than $100 million on races across the country to ensure their allies controlled the 119th Congress.

Scott is facing opposition from Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, founder of the largest U.S.-based crypto exchange. Coinbase has one of the most aggressive lobbying and legal operations in the realm of crypto policy, and it has pumped tens of millions of dollars into a pro-crypto super PAC network.

The bill at issue is on its face the kind of thing crypto companies have been working toward for years — a sweeping rewrite of Wall Street regulations to accommodate the trading of crypto tokens. It’s also a top financial policy priority for the Trump administration.

But the legislation isn’t accommodating enough for Coinbase, which had been generally supportive of Scott’s approach until he revealed a new version of the bill this week.

“Evidently, the industry writes the bill and if anybody in Congress has the nerve to slightly amend it, the industry says that the whole thing is off and they have canceled the law,” Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on Senate Banking and an opponent of the bill, told Blue Light News. “These are folks who think that when they’ve bought themselves a Congress, then they expect it to behave the way they say.”

Armstrong is balking at what he calls the bill’s “erosion” of authority at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission — a regulator the industry has long preferred over the Securities and Exchange Commission. He’s also concerned about the potential for amendments that would crack down on “rewards” from stablecoins — a flashpoint between crypto firms and traditional banks, which see them as threats to old-school savings accounts.

“We’d rather have no bill than a bad bill,” Armstrong wrote on X — a statement that was also at odds with other big players in the crypto world, who say the bill is flawed but still worth advancing.

Before Armstrong’s surprise rebellion, Scott told Blue Light News that he was fully committed to holding the markup, despite looming opposition from key crypto-friendly Democrats and further complications from Republican allies of the banking industry.

“I am hopeful that it will be a bipartisan victory,” Scott said Wednesday around noon. “But at the end of the day, it’s time for us to come and say where we are on the underlying issues.”

But for some Republicans, the outcome was obvious after Armstrong’s power play.

“I think there’s a deal to be had,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said. “But [Armstrong’s] probably made the right assessment in terms of us being ready for the markup.”

What else we’re watching:

— Approps progress: Senators expect to pass the three-bill appropriations minibus Thursday, and some are confident that another funding package could be released this weekend covering Defense, Transportation-HUD and Labor-HHS-Education. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told Blue Light News that senators are keeping their options open for how to process the six remaining funding bills once they return from next week’s recess.

— What’s next on war powers: Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) says Democrats plan to force votes on military action in Greenland, Iran, Colombia, Mexico, Nicaragua and Cuba, after Republicans derailed the Venezuela war powers measure Wednesday. “You make them have to work their ass off to keep their people in the corral,” Kaine told reporters.

Meredith Lee Hill, Jordain Carney and Calen Razor contributed to this report.

Congress

Third Way rolls out “new economic bargain” platform for Dems

Published

3 hours ago

September 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Democratic centrist group Third Way is launching a “new economic bargain” platform as part of its ongoing effort to steer the party toward a more coherent and big-tent vision heading into 2028.

The platform consists of what it calls 20 “ambitious and ruthlessly pragmatic” ideas, shared first with Blue Light News, targeting working-class voters. The ideas include a health care Bill of Rights, ONE MORE, and government-backed car loans to lower the cost of car ownership and forcing AI companies to pay for their own expansion without passing it on to consumers.

“Now that the primaries are over, the big question for Democrats is: What are you going to run on in the general election in ’26? What are you going to legislate on in ’27? And what are you going to promise to do and deliver if you become president?” Jon Cowan, Third Way’s president, said in an interview. “And so we see this now as the pivot moment away from the primaries and toward the policy debate in the party.”

Cowan said the policy ideas provide an affirmative vision for the party, instead of just being anti-Trump, saying the agenda is aimed at “Democrats who want to be able to beat MAGA, because here’s the key thing: you can’t beat something with nothing.”

Earlier this year, the influential think tank launched a $50 million effort seeking to make sure a “combative centrist” emerges as the party’s 2028 presidential nominee.

Now, Third Way has elevated a dedicated staffer — Sasha Galbreath, a longtime House policy adviser — to establish connections between the group and staffers for potential 2028 presidential and vice presidential candidates. The group is already in conversation with at least 16 potential candidates and their staff, according to Cowan.

“The ideas primary is really only just beginning now,” Cowan said. “I think the pivot into September and the end of the primaries is actually when the real ideas primary to determine the future of the Democratic Party begins.”

Congress

Democrats’ new data center attack line

Published

4 hours ago

September 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Voters are in an uproar over data centers — and Democrats are trying to direct anger toward Republicans by pointing to a tax provision buried in the GOP’s “big, beautiful bill.”

Of the myriad talking points on this issue that Democrats are preparing deploy heading into the midterms, they this week began alluding to “Opportunity Zones” — an initiative designed to boost growth in areas deemed underdeveloped and which, at one point, Republicans had touted as a way to spur the construction of data centers.

“Every single House Republican but one or two voted to unleash data centers on the American people in an unfettered fashion,” said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries at a news conference Monday.

The next day, a senior House Democrat — Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts — made a similar observation on the chamber floor.

“A year ago, Republicans were bragging about giving tax breaks to Big Tech in order to build data centers,” McGovern said. “With November on the horizon, some House Republicans are acting as if they did not turbocharge the data center buildout.”

Republicans — and Opportunity Zone advocates — scoff, noting data centers are just one of many possible uses of a program that was never designed to support any one industry specifically.

“Huge stretch,” said House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.), who oversaw the expansion of the Opportunity Zone tax credits in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. “Opportunity Zones control, like, everything — from child daycare centers to manufacturers. Can data centers be used in them? Yes. But so can everything else.”

But the narrative has been building steam in recent weeks, tucked inside reports from Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, and the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. The message was further boosted Monday with social media posts from liberal policy influencers like Brendan Duke, an economist at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and Pod Save America cohost Jon Favreau.

A Truth Social post from President Donald Trump calling for Americans to “let Data Reign” gave Democrats an opening to pounce.

Democrats’ new line of attack comes as Republicans are already grappling with a fresh dilemma: How do they respond to voter concerns about data centers driving up energy costs, when their president is publicly downplaying those worries?

The messaging tactic also arrives as Republicans are already struggling to sell voters on their 2025 tax law ahead of the midterms — and Democrats are now using data center anxiety as another way to undercut that effort.

Poll after poll show mushrooming frustrations with data centers throughout the country, including in House and Senate races necessary for the GOP to hold onto its majorities on Capitol Hill.

House Republicans were likewise hounded in their districts on data centers throughout their summer recess. Now back in Washington, they are pressing Speaker Mike Johnson on whether leadership has plans to put any data center-related legislation on the floor in the next month, but have received no commitments.

One vulnerable Republican who has found himself under scrutiny is Rep. David Valadao of California, who Jeffries called out by name at his news conference as someone who voted for the 2025 megabill that Democrats claim will give way to more data center construction.

“Is Hakeem opposed to the data centers?” Valadao asked in an interview. “Does he not think the data centers, at some point, have to be developed? Is that what he’s trying to imply, or is he just trying to make a political issue out of something that probably needs to be addressed?

“I mean, obviously there are local concerns that need to be addressed,” he continued, but added, “trying to use something that a lot of people would argue is important for national security or national security interests as a political weapon sounds pretty irresponsible.”

Smith said that “Democrats will use any issue to help empower themselves to victory. They don’t have to abide by truth. They’ll say whatever they can and they’ll mislead whatever they can. So anything Hakeem Jeffries says — if it’s coming out of his mouth, it’s probably not true.”

Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, chair of the Senate Banking Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, conceived of Opportunity Zones alongside Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, to attract developers to hard-hit communities. The program offers breaks on capital gains taxes to those who invest in one of more than nearly 9,000 designated areas around the country.

Since the program went into effect as part of the GOP’s 2017 tax law, developers have used these incentives to build a range of projects — apartment complexes, warehouses, parking garages and hotels — largely in more populated areas, while rural areas went mostly ignored.

To address this disparity, Republicans in their 2025 megabill beefed up the tax advantages for projects in less-dense areas. As it turns out, some of these rural projects have included data centers.

Republican tax writers didn’t shy away from the byproduct. In an August 2025 press release celebrating passage of the megabill a month earlier, they quoted a Bloomberg Tax commentary piece that noted the expanded tax credits could be used for data centers.

An analysis from the National Community Reinvestment Coalition published this month figures that 14 percent of data centers are in Opportunity Zones, while 17 percent of those currently planned or being built are similarly situated. The organization, which focuses on low-income issues, also predicts that a large portion of the next batch of Opportunity Zones could be used for data centers because they are near key resources, like good sources of power.

“You’re seeing an increasing trend of [opportunity zones] being utilized to develop data centers,” Simon Wang, NCRC’s economic mobility specialist, said in an interview.

Wyden — who could reclaim the Finance Committee gavel next year if Democrats take the Senate majority in the midterms — has explicitly called for banning data centers from benefiting from Opportunity Zone incentives, saying they do little to help for the surrounding communities.

Spokespeople for Scott in his personal office and at the NRSC did not respond to requests for comment, as GOP Senate candidates in states like Michigan and Ohio face data center backlash on the campaign trail. Booker’s office also did not return a comment request.

Republicans are responding to Democratic criticism by ticking off the long list of other investments that have been made through the Opportunity Zone program. They also note the current crop of zones was established in 2018, long before the current data center boom began.

But if Democrats are able to further popularize their narrative, it could affect both data center expansions and the success of the Opportunity Zone initiative. State elected officials are currently deciding where to place the next batch of locations based on certain socioeconomic criteria — something that happens only once every decade — and many local leaders are now being aggressively lobbied on the issue.

“You can bet that the choices governors are making right now — that the data center industry is in their office saying, ‘Please pick this tract, and not that tract,’” said Brett Theodos, director of the Urban Institute’s Center for Local Finance and Growth.

Some Opportunity Zone advocates are playing up the benefits of such projects.

“Data center construction fuels demand for blue-collar jobs in construction, maintenance, and the building trades while generating substantial tax revenue to fund local services and reduce the tax burden on local residents,” said John Lettieri, president of the Economic Innovation Group and a longtime Opportunity Zone advocate, in an email. “Steering those kinds of economic benefits towards struggling communities is exactly what the policy was designed to do.”

But data center proponents could now face headwinds. Many states have begun canceling or phasing out their own tax incentives for data center construction; just last week, Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey signed a law ending a special data center tax credit.

Asked how data center blowback could hit Republicans in November, Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, who represents Silicon Valley, said his party had a chance to show their alliance with data center skeptics making up large swaths of the electorate.

“Trump has made it an issue by saying that he wants data centers reigning everywhere; he’s basically saying he doesn’t care about local control, he doesn’t care about local communities,” Khanna said in an interview Wednesday. “We can be on the side of local cities, rural communities, factory towns, suburbs — places that don’t want Big Tech coming and telling them what to do.”

Andres Picon contributed to this report.

Congress

House Democrats watch closely as Hakeem Jeffries vows to rein in rogue members

Published

14 hours ago

September 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Democrats have spent the better part of two years looking on in glee as House Republicans have struggled to wrangle their narrow majority and enact a consensus agenda.

Now, eyeing a potentially small majority of their own, they are eager not to see the shoe quickly land on the other foot — which is why Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is under fierce internal pressure to crack down on a surprise rebellion this week.

The decision by Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) and Jared Golden (D-Maine) to support a Republican procedural measure that would have otherwise failed — essentially bailing out Speaker Mike Johnson’s floor agenda — prompted Jeffries and fellow Democratic leaders to decry a “breach of trust” and promise a “serious response.”

Rank-and-file members are watching closely to see if Jeffries follows through on those threats and moves to rein in rogue members who could undermine the party agenda and his own leadership.

“If there’s no understanding that we need to stay together on procedural measures, then we’re going to be like Republicans,” said Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Rules Committee Democrat and a Jeffries ally. “I mean, they can’t get anything done because everybody’s going off in different directions.”

Many Democrats are hoping Jeffries will set an assertive tone and send a message that some protest tactics will not be tolerated in a future majority. The situation is of particular interest to members given the slate of insurgent hard-left members poised to join the caucus next term — some of whom have openly discussed adopting strategies embraced by the hard right.

“It’s an open secret — we don’t want to end up with our own Freedom Caucus,” one House Democrat granted anonymity to speak candidly said in an interview, referring to the fractious ultraconservative group. “You see how a core group of people can stop the workings here … when it’s continual and it’s just about grandstanding. … We don’t want that.”

“I’m not saying that those folks coming in are going to operate in that way,” the member added. “We don’t know. But we’ve got to tighten up the systems.”

Already, House Democrats have competing views about how and when to punish the rogue members. Multiple members, for example, have privately suggested kicking Gluesenkamp Perez off of the Appropriations Committee — a highly coveted assignment.

Gluesenkamp Perez represents a district President Donald Trump won in 2024.

But others acknowledge that leaders have little leverage against the duo. Golden is leaving the House at the end of this term, and Gluesenkamp Perez is one of the most vulnerable Democrats in the country.

Keeping her seat in a district President Donald Trump won by 3 percentage points in 2024 could determine the outcome of the midterm elections, and she has made her clashes with party leaders a core part of her political identity.

Some members — including progressives who used procedural votes for leverage during Nancy Pelosi’s speakership — also cautioned leadership from overpolicing members.

Asked about how Jeffries should “punish” the members, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), a former chair of the Progressive Caucus, said, “We’re not kids, and he’s not our dad.”

“I’m elected by 750,000 people. I get to make my decisions about what I want,” Jayapal said before adding, “At the same time, I think there has to be a strong commitment to the team.”

“I think that there can be certain reasonable expectations — for example, to flag how one may intend to vote on something,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said. “I also think that the idea that there will be consequences depending on how that is laid out could create a slippery slope.”

Both of the rebels are shrugging off the intense reaction from Democratic leaders and some of their colleagues. Golden said he voted with Republicans to advance a bill he cosponsored benefiting lobstermen in Maine; Gluesenkamp Perez said she voted to support Golden and “people who make their livelihoods and heritage on the water.”

“I do not have a polished political strategy,” she told reporters Wednesday. “I know my community, and that’s who sent me here, and that’s who I am thinking about.”

Many of their Democratic colleagues aren’t ready to just let it go, however. Several argued in interviews that if every member broke ranks on procedural votes to advance legislation they support, the party would lose significant leverage.

Golden, left, is retiring after his term ends.

“I am generally of the view that if you believe that you are a free agent in this town, maybe you don’t get to use the team locker room anymore,” Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) said, adding that he could not think of a potential punishment “within the scope of what leadership can do that could be opposed by the caucus.”

Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) said “some tough love“ might be necessary to send a message to the broader caucus: “We’re all in this together.”

Amid the agita, it’s not clear how quickly Jeffries will act. An internal committee dealing with caucus rules met Wednesday and discussed the matter but did not advance any specific proposals for sanctions or rules changes.

Jeffries himself has not committed to a timeline for imposing consequences against the two defectors. He told reporters Wednesday he wants to pursue action “sooner rather than later” as he faces internal questions about whether he can exert the same level of control over Democrats as his predecessor did.

Pelosi dealt with rebellions of her own, including moderates who repeatedly voted with Republicans to amend Democratic bills on the floor. But she pointedly commented on the disloyalty on display this week, with Golden and Gluesenkamp Perez essentially voting to advance the GOP floor agenda.

“We didn’t even consider that anybody would do that,” she said Tuesday. “We never had that problem, so I’m disappointed that they did that.”

Another lawmaker who was happy to comment Wednesday was Johnson, who has routinely contended with GOP mutinies during his time in office — including one that Gluesenkamp Perez and Golden bailed him out of Tuesday.

Jeffries “has a serious problem in his caucus,” he told reporters, citing the “warring factions in his party.”

“I don’t see a way out of that thicket,” he said. “But I’m not going to tell him how to govern his conference, and he doesn’t, or shouldn’t, be telling me how to.”